Wednesday 3rd July
Another warm sunny day, but they are forecasting showers for tomorrow, but we'll see. We drove to the Tandoon Botanic Gardens. These gardens are on the outskirts of Gladstone about 5 kilometres from the city centre. The Garden is quite large in size spanning over 150 hectares but sadly there are no flowers, just greenery and trees. We did visit the Orchid House, but not a single orchid was in sight. The Gardens boast more than 1500 plant species from the local Port Curtis region and Far North Queensland. The Gardens' centrepiece is the Toondoon Dam which was the town water supply from 1916 to 1945. Still featured is the old pump station and water tower which is below the dam wall. Another link to Gladstone is the fort like entrance which represents the local Indigenous police who were stationed on the area back in the 1800s. There is also a Japanese Tea Garden with traditional ornamental landscaping. As traditional Japanese plants are not ideally suited to the Queensland climate they have been replaced by similar Australian native ones. This Garden was constructed in 2010 with the symbolic 'less is more approach'. There are also some carved Totem Poles that have plaques on them with names of community members that have celebrated their 100th birthday. What a great gesture this is. Next door to the cafe was an art exhibition with some great pictures on display. The view from the cafe over looks part of the lake as it is raised up off the ground to make it a great place to have a drink and a bite to eat. We've decided to spend an extra couple of days here as we were meant to leave tomorrow to head inland but will now leave on Saturday. Roast chicken for dinner tonight. It seems that our meal routine that we used to have at home as now vanished.