This is about to become an epic travel month for us so as a ‘taster’ we spent a couple of nights in Newcastle, with a stop at the Hunter Valley Gardens on the way home on Sunday.
We had lunch with Andrew and did some shopping.
And we went for a walk along the new Anzac foot bridge.
You can see this bridge from nearly everywhere in the city.. (I could see it from our hotel window although I didn’t realise what it was until we walked on it)!
Not only is it a beautiful thing, its using a bit of cliff that was relatively useless before.
And not only is it a great tourist view vantage point, all the fit and healthy of Newcastle were out either jogging or power walking on it. Great to see an imaginative structure, with a memorial purpose, that can be used by the whole community.
There is someone with a lot of foresight in the Newcastle council who is not only doing a great job with projects like this but also with the reclaiming of all the foreshore industrial and railway sites.. 3 cheers for them!
THEN… on our way home on Sunday we spent a couple of hours at the Hunter Valley Gardens. We will have to have a return trip because we just didn’t have enough time.
It was their Rose Spectacular. We went around on the little train, which was a great way to see most of it quickly..
The rose below is called Chameleon as it starts off yellow then fades to orange and finally pink – and they had thousands of them.
They are also getting ready for their Christmas light show.
This is the Japanese Garden
This is a real crane not a garden ornament! and below – WOW.
And in the Storybook Garden ,,, of course I had to visit Alice…. My number one literary heroine ..
Its having a repaint so should be shiny and new fairly soon.
I am now on Long Service Leave…
Our next trip is the ‘entree’,, the Car Club Mystery Run
Then its the ‘main’ South Africa,,,, Capetown and the Kruger National Park …….
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