I am blessed in my little boy for many reasons, but at school holiday time one reason comes in very handy.
“Mummy I love nature. It’s just so full of beautiful stuff!
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It is becoming our tradition every school Holidays to get out into our local bushlands and gardens. He loves it, we are both getting excercise and I can work as well.
This holidays we climbed Mt Majura and took the forest walk on Black Mountain. We were going to do some further exploring at the National Botanic Gardens but they were closed the day we went due to extremely windy conditions. Much to our disappointment; my son really wanted to visit the new desert garden.
Mt Majura Nature Reserve
Mt Majura is right behind where we live so we visit there quite often. I plan to climb it every school holiday break this year so I can take note of the seasonal changes and know what is in flower when. I like the idea of painting the flowers and plants that are close to where I live. It is easy to be seduced by the rarity and diversity of the Australian flora when visiting the collection of plants at the National Botanic gardens, and I do get a chance to explore those plants when I paint with the Freinds of the Botanic Gardens group but I really want to concentrate on those specimens close to home first.
On this visit there was not a great deal in flower, it is starting to cool off heading towards winter.
Black Mountain
I have lived in canberra for 20 years since coming here as a University student. I have visited the tower on black mountain but had never explored the surrounding bush. So when we visited the National Botanic gardens to find it closed we decided to explore Black Mountain which is right next door to the gardens.
We followed the forest walk trail which takes about an hour to walk and takes you right around the top half of the mountain. It is a rugged little landscape, that floats quietly above the bustle of Canberra city.
Black Mountain map showing the forest walk trail.
