Tuesday, December 22, 2015

MALENY BOTANICAL GARDENS..

For our wedding anniversary this year, Sarah and Chloe gave us a gift voucher for a visit to the Maleny Botanical Gardens.  We had 12 months to use it.  It also included a Devonshire morning tea. 
Our time was fast running out, so we decided to spend a day up there checking out the gardens and seeing their big bird aviary...  We also thought it would be a nice outing for Willow and my Dad....
It did mean though we were a little limited in the number of walks we could do...

What a beautiful place.  We will definitely be back there to visit again.  We met our good friends, Barb and John and John's sister Susan who was visiting from the UK for morning tea as well...
The bird aviary was spectacular, as they had quite a few Macaws, and they were particularly friendly happy to fly and sit on your shoulder or arm.... they loved the jewellery you wore or the buttons on your clothes.   Most of us took our jewellery off.... I had my fitbit watch but didn't think about taking it off, and I now have a chunk missing from the band where one of the birds decided that he would like a taste of it....

When we first got there, there were a couple of very friendly cockatoos....  They happily sat on your shoulder chatting to you.  Willow was quite fascinated by them but didn't want them on her.... She wanted to see them but didn't want to get to close... Very wary....

Patting the cockatoo -- just don't put him on me...
Not too sure about this Moppy
Fascinated, as long as she could keep a little distance....
Large bird Aviary
One of the many rotundas in the gardens.. Magnificent views....
We loved the birds.... All different sizes and shapes...
 I loved the fact they they would come up and land on your shoulder....
He was more interested in finding my buttons..

Managed to get some pretty good photos with Steve also...



He went from his shoulder down to his arm...

My Dad who also loves birds was happy to get up close and personal with these magnificent birds...
 We were amazed at the variety of the birds they had and the most amazing colours of these beautiful birds...We would have spent a good hour or more in here looking at the many spectacular
birds....

Harry was a little more temperamental
Inside the bird aviary
Magnificent creature......

 Dad found the walking a little hard, so he was happy to sit on one of the many seats available and let the rest of us wander around the aviary....  He was kept suitably amused by the birds that were visiting him....
Dad sharing his experience with Willow....
 Attached to the aviary was a bit of a petting zoo.  As Willow just loves the animals, we decided to wander through it and show her the different animals and let her pat them.

Mr. Sheep
A friendly lama
A donkey and shetlin pony...
Mr Goat
This fellow was really cute...
Meeting the Lama
Giving him a pat
He is nice and soft....
From the bird aviary and zoo area,  we went and climbed the tree house,,,'And what a tree house it actually was, it was actually built for the owner's son.  The views from up here though was pretty spectacular....
Views of the Glass House Mountains..
Up close of the Glass House Mountains..

Overlooking the gardens...
Magnificent scenery
Panoramic view of inside the tree house...
Panoramic view taken from the top of the treehouse. 

Willow checking out the view..
Riding the elephant
 From here we headed back to the main kiosk area we where a sent  to a  lovely rotunda  to have our morning re...
And how good was this.....
Fresh homemade date scones with raspberry jam and fresh cream, with big hot teapots full of tea...
We enjoyed this with Barb and John and John's sister Susan.
The table centre pieces were cactus in teapots... very cute...

Morning tea with these great folk...
All of our at morning tea....
Whilst we were having our morning tea,  Willow noticed a large garden chair down in the gardens below and wanted Poppy to take her down exploring...  How could he not indulge her....
Willow sitting on the great big seat....

Having a swing...
Swinging with Poppy


 Having a walk around the gardens with her Poppy

Hello Moppy
Add caption
Having my photo taken on the big seat....

 Our famous Glass House Mountains...
From the owner's residence....
What an amazing view these guys have....
Checking out the funny wooden chair with Poppy...
Amazing plant.
 I did think that this plant was pretty amazing as it grew not only lemon flowers, but there were two different colours of flowers growing out of the same bush. 

 I loved these Hydrangeas also... I have tried growing them at home with no success...  They are a bluely purple up here they were an amazing Pink down south in South Australia

 By this stage it was after lunch and Willow really did need a rest after our late night the night before..
Also Dad does pretty well at his age in terms of getting around, but walking up and down paths for klms is probably a bit beyond him now, so we farewell ed the others and headed back towards the cars,

We found a wishing well, and of course it was the perfect spot to stop and have a photo taken...
 
Willow and Moppy
 I love all these agapanthesis at the moment also.  They are flowering everywhere down here...



Back to the shop front...

 
 
Back to the car park..
 It was a great day, and a place we will definitely be visiting again.  Next time we will probably just go together so that we can wander around them at our leisure.  it is definitely a bless wehrer you could go and sopend the whole day there,,,

So glad we got to spend some time here....

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