The Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens - April 2011

Friday (29 April 2011), Rob and I decided to go to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens! They’re out in Roodapoort, so not even on the other side of the globe! (Unless you’re reading this from another country, not South Africa, in which case, never mind!)

Oh my unholy cheeses but these gardens were gorgeous!!! I think it’s because you have to pay to get in! Emmarentia Botanical Gardens is free, but alas it doesn’t have a penny’s worth on this one! (Sorry Emmarentia!! < - -grew up with these gardens so feels a bit of a traitor. But just a bit!)

Below are some pics to help me explain the whole thing better!!

Aren't they pretty? There were herb gardens and rock gardens and butterfly gardens and a whole feast of different plants and goodies to look at!


Oooooh! Lovers getting close and snuggly! Now that's the way to do it!


Here is the dandy little bridge we had to cross to get to the waterfalls! Doesn't it look shady and peaceful and make you think that any time now a murder mystery is going to play itself out with you as the main character?


Off to see the falls! Aren't they huge?! Can you imagine having a picnic just nibbles away from all that free flowing water? Think it would make you need the bathroom every ten seconds!


Here we saw a bunch of kids lining up to be executed.
Okay no not really... sigh. There were classes of kids going all about the gardens, looking about and writing in books and behaving pretty much the way all kids do when on a field trip and out of class and having to bother to concentrate!


We came onto the restaurant from the back and observed this nifty criptic sign! Can you tell what it's supposed to say?*


The restaurant itself! Rob ordered a meal and my my, did they do him proud! No small portions of funky, week old veggies here! (Or if there were, they were nicely fried so you couldn't tell!)

I spent a large amount of time trying to take photo's of butterflies! They're not very obliging and my camera was filled with blurred action photos with maybe a colourful dot somewhere about it! Still look! Look! Not too shabby hey?!


And yes, I took other photo's of other strange critters as well! They were a lot easier then the butterflies!!

You can almost taste the greenery and beauty of the whole place! And considering the day before and the day after were grey and over cast, didn't we luck out big time?

So why not give the gardens a visit sometime? And if you get the idea, hey we should take Jo as well - seriously, go with it!