Visit to the Canberra Arboretum Wednesday 17th April, 2019

It’s been quite warm and sunny today after a misty start this morning. We got out by about 9.00 a.m., despite some false starts with forgetting things and repacking our stuff to make it easier to carry. We caught the 39 bus into the Central Bus Station. Our plan was to catch Bus 81 which runs by most of the main attractions. All of the bus numbers will change next week as the light rail comes into operation, so remembering bus numbers for future trips is not going to work.

We had a half hour wait and Stephen went off to get a new timetable and I had a coffee at a very small cafe adjacent to our bus stop. It was an interesting experience as it appears to be Vietnamese, but had a couple of Christian messages, including this bible quote for April.

Stephen arrived and started reading the paper.

It was quite a long bus ride and we were in conversation with a local person who was able to fill in some gaps for us. There was no tourist information given by the bus driver.

We visited the Arboretum four years ago in drenching rain. We were able to look out on some of the planting, but the only trees we were able to visit in person were the bonsai, which are housed in a covered area. This time we walked to the top of a hill and were able to have wonderful views all around, including views of the different types of trees and bushes. It appeared to us that it the plants and trees have grown enormously, but it might have been just that we only had a view in one direction from the main building.

We found we got very tired today and were glad to come home and have a rest. We were pleased to have had the opportunity to visit the Arboretum on a sunny day of course.

The Festival begins tomorrow evening, and we plan to have one more bus ride to the city to do some sight seeing. We are hoping to find a bit of time during the festival to take a ride on the new light rail service, which starts on Saturday.