The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in Hobart are a favourite place of mine. The times of year I like to visit most are spring, when all the bulbs are out, and autumn to enjoy the changing colours of the foliage but there is always something lovely to see there.

It is not the easiest place to visit. There is limited car parking, on a sunny weekend it may be impossible to find a parking spot. Public transport is also limited. The “Red Decker” tourist bus stops there but there doesn’t seem to be a regular Metro bus service. When I visit I usually end up walking there from the CBD. If the weather is fine and you have the time it is a nice walk but I do think that better public transport would bring more visitors as not everyone can manage the 2km walk through the Queen’s Domain.

My sister and I visited the Botanical Gardens recently. Our plan had been to have lunch at the restaurant  followed by a walk but to our dismay when we arrived it was closed for renovations. I should have checked the website first but at least we were able to buy a snack and a drink and enjoy the views from a table by a big picture window.

After lunch we set off for our walk. There were a lot of people around as it is school holidays in Tasmania and there were also some buses which may have brought tourists from the  cruise ship “Oosterdam” which was in port. Anyway in some cases we had to wait for people to move before we could take photographs but we managed to get some nice ones in the end.

Our favourite find was “The Burrow”, my sister had read about it online and we wanted to see where it was as we had not visited before. “The Burrow” is a small room in the park which has been set up as  a reading area. It is crammed with all kinds of books which visitors are free to read and even to take home if they wish. the room operates on an honour system and visitors are encouraged to leave books there as well as to borrow them. There are a few bean bag chairs stored there too which are placed out on the grass so you can sit and read in the sunshine. It is a delightful little spot and one we’ll be going back to next time we are at the Botanical Gardens. We both plan to take some books to leave there next time we visit.

We also like the floral clock and the historic brick wall which is part of the original section of the park. It was built on the order of Governor George Arthur in 1829 and originally the walls were heated inside.

In spring there is a wonderful display of tulips and other bulbs and I always try to visit to see them. Here are a couple of photos taken in spring a few years ago and a couple more from last October when I was too late for the tulips but still found a lot of flowers to photograph. If you would like to see more of my photos from the Botanical Gardens they are on Flickr. Here is a link to the page.

Further Reading:

The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens – http://www.rtbg.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=10