Visited South Australia Art Gallery, beautiful building, with a bit of aboriginal art but lots of early paintings of the city.  The two best things to do in Adelaide were:

1.    The Art of Nature exhibition at the South Australian Museum.  All detailed drawings and paintings of animals.  Beautiful sketches by Edward Lear – he of the limerick fame.  They also had some life size prints of birds by John James Audubon – (famous French American ornithologist, naturalist and painter) - brilliant.  Audubon has a society named after him which focuses on preserving ecosystems particularly with reference to birds.  There were also SEM pictures of a bee and modern day drawings of seep sea crabs.

2.    The Santos Museum of Economic Botany in the Botanical Gardens.  Built in 1879 by Richard Schomburg who was the second Director of the Botanical Garden.  A fabulous collection of dried herbs, roots and seeds – from rosemary to Bunyan tree cones, housed in the original glass cases.  These buildings were original used to display nature fruit and seeds and what they could be used for – cropped for, hence economic.  They were sources of information about the plants for the people settling in the young South Australian colony.  Think Kew might have a similar building.

When I said to Paul that ‘.. made my day’.  He replied ‘Surely waking up in the morning alive makes your day’.  Fair point. 

This is the Bicentennial Conservatory in the Botanical gardens.  Originally a tropical house is now being turned into dry house as cost of watering was over a million dollars per year and government cutbacks….

We had a free tour of the botanical gardens. Paul really, really, really loved it.  These are some of the oldest plant types on the planet.  This is a ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba).

These are cycads. 

They have male and female forms.  This is the female, a beautiful furry outer coating

Reveals down covered seeds on the inside.

There are several different species.  This is another female:

A male plant.

Our guide with the grass tree (Xanthorrhoea quadranqulata).  The bulrush type flower/seed heads are used as foraging sticks by aboriginals.  I think they must be used as spears as well.

Not a very good picture of the rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus).  They move fast and just as you get to focus off they fly.  In groups they either fly dead straight or dart, twist and wheel through the trees.

This is all that remains of the Lunatic Asylum – the Dead House – that used to occupy this part of the garden.  Now used as a tool shed but it still has the slate slabs inside that were used for the bodies.

A large area to the left of the morgue had been dug out in preparation for reintroduction of marsh area – as it once was. 

A network of blue pipes lined the area and signified that water for the marsh will be coming from recycled waste water.  In fact most of the garden is now watered from this source rather than from the river.

Other things to note in the gardens were a Class Garden, which was set up following plant classification scheme that went from monocotyledon to dicotyledonous plants.  Great for a field trip.  There was also a medicinal plant garden which the University does use for teaching.

A cute crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) with a missing toe.  My bird book says they live in flocks but I’ve only ever seen them in singles or pairs.

A thirsty (and hungry) Paul at the Botanical Gardens after being dragged around the gardens.