Floriade is a big deal in Canberra's calendar - an annual flower festival which takes place in Commonwealth Park. The festival has been in the news recently as the National Capital Authority (a National/federal body which looks after all of the federal land in Canberra) have been in conflict with the ACT Government which looks after the 'local' land (via the Land Development Agency). It's all very complicated, but suffice to say the two bodies don't always seem to get along and appear to be at loggerheads as to whether the festival remains in Commonwealth Park or moves to another park. This therefore could be the last year in it's current location.
Either way, the festival draws throngs of visitors from other parts of Australia and this time of year coachloads of people head to the nations capital!
The festival had been going for a month, but we hadn't managed to time a family visit because we had been otherwise tied up with football, netball, swimming, horse-riding, karate etc. Sunday was actually the final day of the festival and so we, along with thousands of others made time to go along to have a look.
Unfortunately the last month has been beset with quite heavy rain and winds and so a number of the beds were 'past their best', but generally it was still pretty spectacular. It was notable as this was the first time that the organisers had used 'drop in beds' (essentially huge boxes of flowers) rather than ones grown on site. Somehow it wasn't the same, but still effective and fundamentally the festival is FREE - so it's difficult to complain!
The kids took part in a free flower arranging session and got to take home some lovely blooms (about half a dozen people asked me where we had bought the bunches from!)
We spent a really nice Sunday afternoon there - the kids ending it with sticky fairy floss (candy floss).
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| Audrey working on her display |
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| Eli with his bunch of flowers- nobody got my Oasis joke (oasis is the green foam that holds the flowers and my Wonderwall rendition was completely wasted) |
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| flowers |
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| fairy floss |
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| more flowers |
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