Thursday was such a beautiful sunny day at last so I said that if Friday was also nice I was going to go out somewhere with my camera. After a small panic when the battery wouldn't fit easily back in the camera (which I have learned means it's time to dispose of the battery carefully) hubby and I set off with the old camera. Just a quick visit to the Old Parliament House rose gardens. Hah, it's never quick when I have a camera with me!
First the House of Representatives side, with the Centenary of Women's Suffrage Commemorative Fountain just inside the gate.
I love the wisteria pergolas in the OPH rose gardens.
Exquisite colour. All the roses have name tags, this one is Playboy.
That's Old Parliament House in the background. It's now the Museum of Australian Democracy.
There are more wisteria pergolas in the Senate rose garden, and tennis courts beside them.
And more roses.
And lovely old trees providing welcome shade.
Some of the roses in the Senate rose garden had impressive big rosehips.
Then hubby said the fateful words "let's go out that gate and see what's in the next park".
The Magna Carta Monument, a very cool looking structure I think.
And then I realised if we'd walked this far it wasn't really that much further to walk up to the road cutting with the amazing geology that I'd been wanting to photograph for ages.
Apparently it's an 'unconformity'.
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages.
The rocks in this unconformity are shale and sandstone.
The sandstone was formed 490 - 428 million years ago and the shale 440 - 385 million years ago.
The period of erosion prior to the top layer being deposited is estimated as 9 million years.
The figures vary somewhat depending on the source.
Let's just call it Silurian.
I love the layer cake look.
These are only some of the photos I took, I hope I haven't overdone it.
Continuing on we reached the bunya pine that the Duke of York planted in 1927 during his visit to open Parliament House.
It's difficult to do justice to this wonderful huge tree in a photograph.
Then it was across the road to the oak plantation at the northern end of York Park. The Duke of York planted the first of these oaks, supplied by Kew Gardens in England, during his 1927 visit.
We saw a few other people out enjoying the lovely weather. These two look suspiciously like Prime Minister John Curtin and Treasurer Ben Chifley in their finest 1940's work duds.
And then it was back past Old Parliament House to our car and finally on our way home.
Happy New Year everyone!
2 comments:
Hi Mac
Nice ramble around Parliament Houses old and New.
A few of those monuments and statues are new since my time.
I can honestly claim to have a seedling of that magnificent Bunya Pine (Cnr of Kings Ave and Capitol Circuit or whatever it is called these days). I went in under the low branches and collected several freshly fallen cones just before I left Canberra. then brought them up here, and managed to get several seeds to germinate. I planted one at the back of my house.
Must admit I was not aware of the history associated with it. I just love that old solitary specimen there.
Cheers and thanks for the nostalgia.
Denis
Denis, how wonderful to have been able to grow a bunya from seed! There are some nice ones at Lanyon homestead too, with signs warning people not to stand underneath when they have pinecones.
Post a Comment