Since starting my job in Canberra over 4 months ago, I've resolutely returned to Sydney every weekend. However, last weekend was the first time I had to stay in the nation's capital for the simple reason that the choir I sing with had a performance on the Sunday. It wasn't just any weekend either... this was Canberra's family day long weekend!
So, what to do in Canberra for 3 whole days? Tulips are a big thing out here and there is a beautiful garden about 20 mins outside Canberra which only opens for a month a year where the entire garden is tulips and cherry blossom, all located in a hidden valley! It's called Tulip Top and I headed there on Saturday morning in glorious sunshine to find an absolutely stunning display of flowers. They have a few local craft stalls in the grounds, plus a refreshment tent providing free tea, coffee and a morning sausage sizzle if you're around at 11.30am. I wasn't staying that late, so indulged in a pumpkin and rosemary scone which I took out to sit at one of the tables dotted around the garden in amongst the tulips! I also managed to bag myself a couple of beautiful aquilegias for my balcony back in Sydney, keeping my fingers crossed that they'd survive a couple of days in a rather warm car!
From there I drove about 1.5hrs to Bowral - an inland town which reminded me of an American Mid-West goldrush place! Also supposed to be renowned for its tulips, it had a tulip event going on, but was nowhere near as good as the garden I'd visited. They did have a big parade and bands, etc, though, so it was a fun afternoon as I was meeting up with a group of people from Sydney. Afterwards I headed back to Canberra to do Nightfest at Floriade. Floriade is the annual flower show in Canberra, right on the lake. Flower show is a bit of a misnomer in my view... less Chelsea and more another area with thousands of tulips in large beds! There's also a ferris wheel, lots of craft stalls, food, drink and entertainment. Nightfest happens for part of the show, the idea being that they light up the tulips at night. Well, given that the point of tulips is the range of colours,it doesn't really work at night with coloured lights! They do have entertainment going on in the Moonlight Lounge though. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was some kind of outdoors entertainment arena where you got to enjoy some great acts under the stars... in fact it's a marquee enclosed on 3 sides with no view of any moonlight or even the night sky! That was probably a good idea given that the temperature overnight in Canberra at the moment is about -1C!! We did see a really good Comedian - Cal Stevens, so it turned into a great night, but I certainly wouldn't suggest to anyone that Nightfest really has anything to do with flowers!
On Sunday I was meeting another Canberra-based group to visit the Australian equivalent of a stately home... A homestead on the outskirts of the southern side of Canberra! We had a tour around the grounds and the property which was really interesting. We were due to stay for lunch, but as the tour ran over time, I had to leave to get back to the city as I was singing at Floriade with my Canberra choir (Shades of Monday) in the afternoon. The stage we were singing on was huge and there were only about 25 of us so we were somewhat dwarfed by our surroundings! There wasn't much sound foldback onto the stage either, so we couldn't hear ourselves or each other! However, the performance seemed to go well and we attracted more of a crowd rather than losing it, so that was positive. Afterwards, we were approached by a video producer who had filmed the whole performance and he said we could have a copy to put on our website, so hopefully we'll be able to hear what we sounded like soon!
Sunday evening I drove back to Sydney and then on Monday a friend and I headed out down the coast to Jamberoo water park! It's not a huge park (certainly not the scale of something like Alton Towers), but it's got some good water rides, including the new Funnel Web which is awesome! It's a bit of a shock to the system at this time of year because none of the water is heated, so it's absolutely freezing! I'd definitely recommend going at the end of summer when it's been heated by the sun all the way through the hot months! We spent about 6 hrs there and went on each ride twice, so certainly got out moneys worth! Afterwards, I had a beautiful twisty drive up through the mountains to get back onto the main road to Canberra and back for the short working week.
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