WOW, the Cairns Botanical Gardens are just incredible. The gardens and surrounding walks are huge, absolutely huge. We were dodging the fine rain most of the day but with the incredibly large canopy overshadowing the paths, it was a good salvation from the rain and occasional shine of the sun.
We entered the gardens from the south and followed the paths, of course, we didn’t get too far without Mister Lee snapping a few pictures with his fancy camera. It was relatively close to the surrounding roads, but it was a little slice of heaven in the middle of Cairns. There were some amazing tropical plants, with the most unusual looking flowers and as we walked further round we were totally transported to what seemed like a tropical paradise. I have to mention the huge, and when I say huge, I mean it, spider webs. They covered such a vast expanse of space but luckily quite off the beaten path too as I would not have taken one step further.
We entered the main building, and the concentration of tropical exotic looking things increased dramatically. It was decidedly more humid but had some of the most beautiful plants and flowers I had ever seen. Such a unique display of some of Australia’s more unusual and less known plant life. Not to mention we came across the boldest of butterflies, who proudly posed as Lee got increasing close to him with his camera. We took a walk around the rest of the gardens; it was lovely to see the display section devoted to plants used by Aboriginal people. It was interesting reading the uses of some of these strange looking tropical plants.
Overall it was one of the nicest botanical gardens that I have had the pleasure of walking through. Even though the weather wasn’t it’s best; it was still a pleasurable walk.