Wellington Botanic Gardens

So continuing on from the last post, after we arrived at the top of the Cable Car ride we arrived at the Botanical Gardens. The gardens are quite large and we only saw some of it the afternoon we were there. In particular we sought out the Lady Norwood Rose Garden which was adjacent to the Begonia House and Teahouse. The map below shows the extent of the gardens. The gardens are free to visit. I also do not think they can be closed off at night which would be unusual.

On our journey through the gardens we found the tree below. It is everywhere in Wellington and I think it is its emblem. The tree fruits in the Autumn and it is edible and apparently quite tasty. So answers on a post card please as we play guess the name of the tree.....the top prize is a "well done" comment on blogger....there is no second prize.

In our excitement we forgot to take a panaroma of the overall rose garden but here are a few pictures of some of the roses. We did find a rose called "Dublin Bay" but it wasn't in flower.

After the rose garden, a cup of tea and a mince pie we headed into the Begonia House. The name is a bit of a misnoma in that there are not that many Begonias but they are big. We took the photo below with a NZ one dollar coin in the top corner. This would have been very clever if ye knew what size the coin was, lets just say its about the same size as a one euro coin . Also in the "Begonia House" were orchids and water lilies.

We are limited in the number of photos we can use for each post. So we will have to leave it there until we return another day. It is unfortunate that photo's don't smell as the scents walking through the rose garden were fabulous.

Cathal