Araluen Botanic Park
So, we haven’t updated this blog in a while. Shame on us. Obviously some people have the capacity to fit everything in life as well as everything in a blog. One day we might graduate to this point after cloning ourselves and doing some sort of Red Dwarf style mind meld. Speaking of Red Dwarf, it is outrageously expensive on iTunes, why we ask why….
Anyhow. So Araluen, in-fact, Perth Australia generally, lets pause for a paragraph; We’re no longer in Africa or Japan and have been based in Perth for quite a few months. Perth is, much to our surprise being an Australian easterner, not a dust bowl full of rock breakers and hermits wandering in from the desert, but a beautiful cosmopolitan city full of lovely parks, bike ways and even more surprisingly to us at least, a vibrant nightlife full of hidden pubs and music venues. Surprised? I guess if you’re not from Australia this probably doesn’t mean much, but Perth is a very long way from the east, from Brisbane (our old home) it is a mere 360 million centimetres. At regular ant speed this would take roughly 2.3 ant running years to cross. You can tell that we’ve been watching documentaries recently. At some point in the future we’ll, given some time, add some general articles about Perth and what it’s like for an Australian easterner.
For the moment however we’ll stick to the original story, Araluen Botanical Park. Araluen, as known by the westies, is a small government operated ‘botanical’ park south east from Perth by about 25km (5.8 ant days) is apparently difficult to get to by train or bus, but by car it’s only a short trip of about 40 minutes or less in good traffic. The drive can be made quite lovely by getting off the highway and taking as many back options as possible as at the same time that the tulips are out the peach, apple and plum trees are in flower in the orchards close-by. To do this if you’re coming from the city, take a left off the Tonkin high way around Gosnells and take a more direct rout down to via Roleystone, here is a rough map. One of it’s many claims to fame is it’s very impressive display of tulips during the springtime. They’re cheating a little bit obviously purchasing the bulbs and planting them prior to the spring when it’s cool enough in the winter. However that’s the case for just about everywhere in Australia for tulips unless you’re in Tasmania, which must be a pretty amazing place. However if you turn a blind eye to the cheating, which is fine by us as Lena loves tulips, the place is really quite spectacular.
The park itself is not terribly large and would only occupy about half a day if you were slowly walking through the grounds, but given that it’s a relatively short drive from the city it’s worth a look. There is also a nice stream running through the park so if you’re like the many others who don’t mind a bit of timelapse photography of streams then you’ll be in luck. For us the display of tulips was the main game and they did not disappoint. There is also mention of bird life out in the park, but aside from a few common birds flying about we didn’t see much. I would guess that this is largely because of the number of people who were there and as such if there were fewer people you might get some nice shots amongst the flowers.
We would certainly recommend a visit when the tulips are out and about, it was lovely!
