Australia Blog #6 - Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart

Australia Blog #6 – 14 March 2019

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart

“A garden is not meant to be useful.

It is meant for joy.”

- Margaret Rumer Godden,

English author, 1907-1998

On Monday, March 11, Bill and I spent most of the day wandering the fourteen glorious hectares of Hobart’s Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. And what a breathtaking treat it was!

This is our third annual visit to Hobart’s Botanical Gardens – and on each visit, we are impressed even more with its beauty and displays.

Established in 1718, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens are the second oldest in Australia, created just two years after the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

And on each of our three visits, we have dined al fresco at the Succulent Restaurant, perched above the expansive central lawns. The tastiness of the food is matched only by the splendour of the flowers.

There is even a “Subantarctic Plant House”, cooled to what Australians think is a chilly 8.88 degrees centigrade. As I said to Bill when we walked into the building, at that temperature, Torontonians in the early spring start wearing shorts and sitting in outdoor cafés! The exhibit honours Australia’s substantial contributions to Antarctic research. Hobart is the main supply hub for shipments to many of the Antarctic scientific stations.

I hope you enjoy these photos of our visit to Hobart’s Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. I am not a gardener, so I don’t recognize most of the plants and flowers in the photos. If anyone knows their names, please let me know so that I can add the information to this post – with appropriate credit given to the experts!

Not sure when I’ll post next – as of tomorrow, March 15, we are on the road to northern Tasmania as our Australian adventures continue.

As always, thank you for reading my posts.