Three for free

It's been a day of free stuff for us today.

First up, the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens, recently awarded heritage listing.

We had coffee at the cafe there under the giant fig trees ( banyan fig or strangler..... ) thought to be 150 years old.

No labels for this tree but how gorgeous is that bark!

Loved this. 

The kids would have so much fun playing music on it.

An extraordinary tree which took Bill's fancy........ 

It's the Sausage Tree, once used to ferment beer apparently!

The "sausages" weighed a ton! 

Murray Lagoon is on the fringes of the gardens, a gorgeous place to watch the bird and animal life.

I think this is a sandalwood tree. It has the most beautiful bark.

The colours of these noisy rainbow lorikeets blow me away.

I resisted feeding them .....( not my hand)

Our second free stop was the Rockhampton Art Gallery.

They currently have an amazing travelling exhibition called The Lost Thing: From book to film. It is all about Shaun Tan's book, The Lost Thing, an intriguing picture book that was published in 2000 and later made into a short animated film. 

The exhibition was brilliant and featured sketches, drawings and paintings used in the making of the book and the film.

And later in the afternoon, a visit back to the Rockhampton Zoo located within the Botanic Gardens.....also free......where we finally found our cassowary. Pffffttt! I'm pretty sure we would have noticed you out in the forest! Check out the size of those feet!

And more of these guys after feeding time.

 

We have noticed many roadside stalls on our travels.

I love seeing how the growers set them up.

Supermarket variety......small, orange, very tartish taste ( not sure why I even bought them now!)

Home grown......juicy and sweet and delicious.

Why aren't these in the local supermarkets here....... I just don't get it!

Just sayin......

This little boy *big sigh* Miss.