Kings Park

Kings Park (this is how the official website spells it!) was renamed from Perth Park when King Edward VII acceded the throne in 1901. I would add an apostrophe as it was only one king!. It was originally gazetted a park in 1872 (175 ha). Of course for 40,000 years it had been home to the Nyoongar Aboriginal people until the invasion of the British (of whom I am a descendent, with a quite a bit of Irish in there too).

I spent my last day in Perth wandering around these wonderful gardens, beginning with a free ‘History of the Gardens’ guided tour.

A view of the War Memorial and through to the Swan River:

Our tour leader was very informative and also made the effort to find out and cater to our individual interests. She was very patient when I kept interrupting her history talk to ask the names of plants. It is well worth taking one of these tours which are held twice a day on different topics of interest. 

After the tour I had a delicious roast pumpkin salad lunch at the cafe before meandering through the botanic garden section of the park. The botanic garden consists mostly of indigenous WA plants , a major aspect of Kings Park being the conservation and propagation of endangered native flora.

Not being a native WA (who regard them as commonplace), I am fascinated by the sculptural form of the grass trees which have become a sought after landscape plant over here in the south east.

But wait, there is more!!

I won’t post any more of my 100 photos of grass trees!!!

This is the glass bridge which gives an elevated view at the end of the treetop walkway.

Also very sculptural are the boab trees. There are many young trees throughout the gardens:

And this ancient specimen, which has just been moved from a development site in the north of WA. It will be two years before they know whether it will survive the move.

The water garden incorporates the Pioneer women’s memorial water fountain and a large sandstone wall sculpture.

The Banksia garden included these wonderful serpentine benches and mosaics:

Being wintertime the acacia garden was at its flowering best:

I returned to the cafe for some sustenance, coffee and cake, as well as browsing through the Aboriginal gallery and Kings Park Shop. This is a lovely bandana I bought from the Gallery, a printing of artist Karen Walker’s ‘On Walkabout” design.

As well as the Botanic Gardens there is a native bush walks area, picnic areas and playgrounds. I jumped into the hire car for a drive around the rest of the park. The Synergy Park was a very imaginative play area based on the dinosaur era. I loved this island playground and the metal sculptural elements incorporated. Claudia would have had a great time here.

 

Despite spending 5 hours in the gardens I only experienced a fraction of the sights, activities and areas (it is a huge park). If you are going I recommend allocating at least a full day to fully enjoy all there is on offer.

Cheers