Floriade

Our trip to Canberra coincided, as I've already said with Floriade and the 'official' festivities - separate from our visit to Tulip Top - were held in Commonwealth Park alongside Lake Burley Griffin in the centre of Canberra. Tulip Top was highly formal and concentrated on floral displays. Floriade had a mass of flowers, but also a huge range of other attractions for the whole family, including fantasy items like a forest glade with umbrellas floating in the tree-tops; a mechanical organ playing funfair tunes; a Ferris wheel and other funfair items; a planter basket competition; and flower displays (all shown here). Kids had a competition to paint gnomes and there were additional exhibitions of a lifestyle kind, together with lots of shops - many with a garden theme. In the middle of the park someone had even sculptured a model of old Parliament House out of sand and elsewhere there was a herd of full-sized, but artificial, Zebras!

The flower beds were, compared with Tulip Top, somewhat post-modern. Many were works of modern art, with complex and not altogether fathomable designs. And the beds sometimes did not show the same care in their planting out and maintenance as at Tulip Top. Nevertheless, the gardens and displays were overrun with locals and tourists alike. Being Canberra, visitors included scores of different nationalities from all corners of the earth, which gave the proceedings a cosmopolitan air. And unlike Tulip Top which attracted an older and slower paced demographic, Floriade was for all generations. So it was a successful event and one I'd certainly visit again. Entry was also free!

AS