Nurture and Nature

I remember the first day I wore shorts last year, around September 15th at the opening of Floriade, Canberra’s big spring festival. The biggest flower show in the southern hemisphere no less! Well, whilst I am behind on last years’ shorts schedule a sure sign of spring was the return of Floriade in Commonwealth Park. Over one million bulbs set in the theme of Aussie icons, myths and legends. Whilst the relationship between the flowers and the theme was at best tenuous, it provided no less a cheerful few hours in the spring sunshine…

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From the neat and orderly swathes of flowers on Saturday to the wild untamed bush on Sunday, as I headed to the south of the capital territory to Namadgi National Park, where the hills rise into almost mountains, which stretch on into NSW and the Snowies. I drove through the tiny village of Tharwa, stopping at the visitors centre for a short walk around the small billabong there.

I then headed into the Naas valley, which was ever so slightly alpine, with lush green fields stretching in the distance as hills rose on either side. The drive was really nice, climbing to various points overlooking the valley.

The drive got even more interesting as I took a turning onto an unsealed road to Booroomba Rocks car park. Like most of the area around here, this place suffered during the big 2003 bushfires but, like everywhere else is very much recovering, although this doesn’t mean a big blackened branch won’t fall on you as you smell the flowers.



The walk was, well, quite steep…up plenty of steps, past giant boulders peppered with wattle and scurrying lizards and finally to the rocks, which are really just a series of cliffs, popular with rock climbers. It was a nice spot to munch on an apple and try to scramble to various look outs to take in the views, including Canberra which was very hazily in the distance.

The walk back down was as exciting as walking down hundreds of steps gets, and it was actually nice to get back to the car and eat some lunch. I negotiated the road back to civilisation and took the car for a much needed wash…seems this might have to be a regular occurrence. Coming next week…the coast.