An Epic place to visit in Queensland, Australia is the Mount Coot-tha, Botanic Gardens. The Mountain (Mount Coot-tha) is a suburb of Brisbane and is a must visit place if you love the outdoors and nature. There is also the Brisbane lookout at the Mountain with wonderful vantage points to look out over Brisbane city. The lookout is wonderful over looking the city of Brisbane.
In the Botanical Gardens themselves there is so much to see, from all the native trees and shrubs to the typical layouts of a normal suburban vegetable garden as examples of what you can do by becoming self sufficient.
The lake in these gardens is absolutely beautiful with the water lilies and all the surrounding plants and wildlife.
Quite often recently when I visit an area, I stick to a single lens for the duration of the trip and I did this for the trip to the Mountain. I used the Nikon D810 camera and the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E super telephoto lens. The lens was excellent in this situation as many of the water lilies were too far out to use my normal macro lens. There is lots to see around the gardens and I was pleased to see some dragon flies to try out the lens for some closeup action shots.
The gardens here are quite hilly and rugged but the place is beautiful. There are lots of different sub-tropical plants.
The Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mount Coot-tha are the premier subtropical botanic gardens of Queensland. The gardens were founded in 1970 and officially opened in 1976, the 56-hectare gardens are open daily and entry is free.
These 56-hectare gardens are situated approximately seven kilometres from the city center, and offer an excellent variety sub-tropical and Australian native rain forest trees and there is also lots of natural wildlife.
Around the edges of the lake are a beautiful assortment of different water lilies which were flowering in spectacular colours.
In the gardens there is also a section dedicated to samples of a typical vegetable garden and fruit trees which you would grow at home. The image below is from a pomegranate tree.
The next image below is of the Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) and this wading bird is very widespread across Queensland and Australia . It has a predominantly white plumage with a bare, black head, a long bill curved downward and black legs. Its sister species is the African sacred ibis but the Australian white ibis is a native bird to all of Australia and not closely related to the African Ibis. This bird is not a feral variant as some may believe due to its increasing presence around city developments and in the urban environment, it is often seen rummaging around the garbage bins and this consequently has not improved its reputation.
The image below is of the Stuart Green, Gone To Seed 2019 Sculpture, in this sculpture Stuart Green explores the intricate patterns and segmentation created by nature which change and develop throughout the life cycle of a seed, He has appropriated the form of a seed on a monumental scale to expose the complex beauty and kaleidoscope experience that reflects and refracts the surrounding landscape of the artwork. This is part of Brisbane’s public art collection.
Another capture of one of the many dragon flies around the lake.
Some more of the water lilies surrounding the lake edge.
Another one of the Brisbane’s public art collection. This time the sculpture of the butterfy collectors.
If you are in Brisbane, then give these gardens a visit and spend at least a day looking around the gardens and the wildlife there.