More flowers and Cranes and travelling

I have managed to load these images back to front, but no matter. The lovely yellow flower below turns into this gorgeous calyx? fruit? after it dies off. I can't rememberthe name of the shrub, which is in the Shade Garden at our Botanic Gardens, and it is one of the few without a label telling me! I know it is native to this area, but I have never seen it in the wild.

These lovely ground orchids are also native, but again I have not seen them in the wild. They are readily available in the nursery industry now, and I am not surprised. They are easy to propagate and make a very pretty show.

This was the picture which I meant to have at the top of the page - they are magnificent fibreglass Sarus cranes, donated to our Gardens by our Japanese sister city Matsuura. For a long time, they have had to be kept inside as they would be very easily vandalised, but the curator has decided to take a risk and leave them on permanent display in an area which is locked when there are not staff nearby. It is sad that you have to think continually about vandalism, but that is an unfortunate truth these days. Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

I wish I could think up inspiring titles like some of my blogging friends do - mine are always very mundane.

Only two sleeps to go and we are off to Tasmania, leaving here at 6.30 am and arriving in Hobart at 5 pm - a long day, but will be so good to get there. I expect to come back with wonderful photos - the first week will be at a Walking guides of Botanic Gardens conference and they have some excellent trips lined up for us. Then Bill and I will collect a hire car and spend 3 nights based in Richmond from where we will visit Port Arthur, a notorious penal colony when Australia was first settled. that description is for the benefit of our overseas bloggers who may not have heard of it - though that is probably unlikely after the terrible massacre there a decade or so ago. From Richmond we will move over to the south west of the Island to Queenstown. We are not really making any plans of what we will do till we see what the weather is like.

I have been given the names of some interesting places to stock up on 'stash' while I am in Hobart, will just have to watch the weight, always a constraint when you are flying - perhaps that is just as well, though small things can be more expensive than large ones sometimes.

Jock is going off to boarding kennels tomorrow - his first experience of that, but I am sure he will love it, there will be lots of other dogs there - and more people - just what he loves.

One of the other Garden Friends has her bag packed ready and waiting already, so I had better start thinking about mine - I am not too worried, I will basically be repacking what I took away last month, though with a bit of luck we may get some warmer weather for some of the time.

I am taking a small bag of hand stuff to see if I can do a bit in the second week and come back with some god's eyes (part of the online course with Maggie Grey) and maybe some covered paper clips. the pictures of what others have done look good so I want to have a go.

Back in two and a half weeks. Cheers