So Michele and I have come out to the Royal Botanical Gardens pretty much in
the center of Melbourne CBD it's just off the CBD I love this place
now we picked a scorcher of a day it is 45 degrees Celsius put up on the screen
here what that is in Fahrenheit but I can tell you it's a hot one unusual for
Melbourne we're going to take a walk among the world's most ancient forest
trees take this path and experience something of Queensland's ancient
tropical rainforests feels like a tropical rainforest today so warm
bush tulip oak
our addendum AK teen actin if l'm like all good Botanical Gardens almost every
plant in here is labeled with its name its latin name and its common name so
you can really get to explore and it feels really lush and green in here and
we're not far from the city center that's what I love about Botanical
Gardens and here we have the New Zealand collection now it's actually cordoned
off so they must be doing some work on these gardens I don't won't go through
there the beautiful grass is so the New Zealand plant area they're rejuvenating
which is good I mean it's a growing process it's a real wind in the air like
a hot wind like a tropical storm I feel it coming
hey guys so you could answer this one yourself how do you see it the debate
continues over the balance and preserving and utilizing of Australia's
diverse forests some see the forest as an intriguing place where nature can be
marveled at and enjoyed others see it as a valuable resource come on share the
comments what do you think I mean just look at that tree Oh gorgeous is that
bark you can see in the bark itself lots of cobwebs so there's a whole ecosystem
within the bark itself of spiders and different bugs unfortunately I can't get
the drone up and get aerial shots because we're right in the centre
there's loads of helicopter pads and airports nearby so if I can get some
aerial pics I'll share them with you now this is an australian bark to me this is
where where you've got this sort of rough coarse bark that looks like a
normal tree and then it's smooth underneath this is so typical of
Australian flora so during the 1880s as many as seven families lived within the
gardens how cool would it have been to live in this pretty little cottage
now this four-roomed cottage was built in 1888 for the senior gardener so the
head gardener lived here and it provided a handsome entrance and protected for
the gardens from unprincipled Larkins great Aussie word look it up if you
don't know what a larrikin is so here look got the herb gardens down here I
think we shall lie ahead down there need water today
fortunately the gardens are full of these little water bubbles well she's
pretty pretty powerful
beautiful but I think we're gonna see many other people see maybe two people
since we got in here it is just so hot Oh will you look just look down here how
gorgeous how gorgeous is this I don't think I've seen the lilies looking quite
so pretty all the flowers are out yeah I don't
remember seeing do you Michelle the lilies looking quite so pretty
they're big apartment blocks just above us now you'll see on a lot of trees
throughout Australia not just in the Botanical Gardens you'll see this sort
of plastics leaving it's on it's on several of the trees it's this one here
and this one here now I'm pretty sure that's there to stop the possums from
climbing up the trees and damaging them so it's sort of a protective way of just
keeping this quite a few trees actually I've noticed that have got that banding
on them you see it in gardens throughout Australia as well people are generally
trying to keep pests off the trees I'd be pretty certain it's possums got the
whole botanical gardens to ourselves and
you can smell rain in the air now you can smell a storm coming pretty sure
we're gonna have a big storm we're just coming up to the Beagle ornamental lake
just ducks over here so give me your opinion on Botanical Gardens I tend to
always beeline to the Botanical Gardens in almost every city in the world I
think I just love the fact that they're here they're free to wander around they
tell you so much about the flora and the fauna of all the areas of course it's
gonna be in Melbourne you're gonna get those flies landing on you I think
Melbourne has got one of the nicest botanical gardens in Australia I'm
possibly a little biased beings it's my home city but
the dragonfly just went by wouldn't have caught it on camera so if you're
visiting Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane or Perth for that matter any of the the
cities here and larger towns in Australia you must you must come and
visit the Botanical Gardens there's so much to see there are lakes this
beautiful scenery on the weekend it can be a little bit busier but not so busy
I've been here on our on a weekend they're so big the Botanical Garden
study it doesn't feel like heavily-populated got lovely little
areas to sit at this little summerhouse here which looks out onto the lake so if
we got a rain storm we could come in here you can just look out here onto the
lake where's Michelle gone I've lost her
there's often a lot of beautiful carp in this big pond and there's Turtles loads
of turtles I don't know if the children are allowed to feed are they allowed to
feed the Turtles they encourage it they probably they probably discourage
it let's have a little look and see if we can see them now you'll have to take
my word for it there's a cafe over here somewhere beautiful cafe and you often
see people throwing little bits of bread into the water and the water rise and
sort of wriggles with eels if I remember rightly I think it was eels and fish but
you often you do almost always see these lovely Turtles and you probably can't
see it you may be able to the fellow just over here it's playing his flute
he's just come down how beautiful so there are two other people in the
gardens one chap playing his flute good place to come and practice the flute
so is he a florist I wonder if he floats unfortunately they
that's how hard it is they've actually closed the store down and the cafe just
because of the extreme heat so I'm pretty certain these are not normally
closed that I am absolutely certain they're not normally closed it's just
the heat you look at this thorny tree over here look at this Wow it's like
rhino horns really sharp Wow now is that tree got a protective mechanism or what
quite today it's too hot right you can feel it coming in right so the lad was
just saying that there's been very few customers coming through and that's why
they're closing down and there's been a few power outages because of the heat so
the city itself if this storm comes through you watch it'll completely wash
everything through which would be great for the gardens I love a good storm Wow
got the color down here this is a sight for sore eyes so pretty do you want to
see it this plant here the purple plant before I show you very common in
Australia aggie Pantha this one in the suburbs where we used to live when we
were in Melbourne these were in every garden but just take a look at this look
at the colors of all those plants that are in flower at the moment
stories beneath the rain garden oh look can't see it and I won't be able to
photograph it but that's how a sort of national plant
it's a dandelion clock just blowing across wool can you see it just went
past me there shall I love that is symbolizes pretty much our life there's
a storm coming in it's definitely a storm look the clouds are starting to
gather there now so whenever we see a dandelion clock flying by that's sort of
represent our life it goes another one anyway
I want to go over to this beautiful middle wall play over here and I thought
what is this beautiful orange plant is under this canopy because it's its net
to keep people away from earth getting the fencing is falling down on this side
so they're repairing it
it's leavening coal under here
it's almost like a wall comes out from the tree here goes up it's a beautiful
big majestic tree
so that is saya Thea Cunningham Lee or the slender fern tree no good thing to
remember is which gate you came in we came in through Dee Dee because there's
quite a few kilometers between gates so you don't want to end up heading out and
go to the wrong gate so we're gonna wrap it up here gate D up that way so I think
I've said it before if you love plants well just a really nice walk get
yourself to the Melbourne Botanical Gardens in the meantime share the love
take care of yourselves and we'll see you for another video very shortly
pretty good walnuts are behind us Andy
with no way to show it to you in the flash
if you follow till it leads you back
you'll find that the answer is yes