The Cranbourne Royal Botanical Gardens

Last Saturday the members of the Yarra Link project felt it was time for a field trip  and to get out and see what other native gardens in Victoria have to offer, the feature location for this adventure was the Cranbourne Royal Botanical Gardens located about a 55 minute drive from inner city Melbourne.

First stop on our excursion was for a quick warm up at the welcoming  Boon Wurrung cafe and to take in the beautiful view of the Red Sands garden.  After that we made our way through the entrance into the impressively laid out Diversity Garden that featured small sections of Australian plant-life from nearly every region.  Further along you experience the calm pleasure of moving from stone to stone along the Rockpool Waterway, the high stepping stones keep you dry while you see and hear the water rush all around you as it cascades down to the river bend.

We really enjoyed the Kid’s backyard, especially the red slide and how the use of natural materials allowed  the play area to meld into the surrounding landscape.  For a relatively young garden it  was visually stunning even in winter.  We can’t wait to see it in Spring and in the years to come.  The experience left each of us in awe of such a vast project and inspired to move forward with our own little piece of local Australian plant-life.

Download a map of the garden here Map_of_the_Australian_Garden