Na rathaidean fada, lùbach tro Chuimrigh agus Alba

Day 7: 16th March – One Big Park

Today’s trivia:

For the Australians into trivia: The birth of Matthew Flinders, English explorer who circumnavigated Australia. The Flinders River in Queensland and the Flinders Range in South Australia are named after him.

and the Poms into trivia; The Wanderers Football Club, based in London, beat the Royal Engineers 1–0 in the first English FA Cup Final, at Kennington Oval. The number of spectators was 2000 and the winning goal was scored by Morton Betts.

Today there were 177 stairs walked down to get to breakfast and 186 on way up. Think I need to find a new way to count!

It was a late start, 10am. You’d think we are on holidays.

The efficient TfL worked without a hitch including topping up our oyster cards that were bought back on a first OS trip in 2014.

Kew Gardens is big and we ended up spending all day there. Would need another day to see the southwest section we didn’t get to. A few things were closed over winter with signage saying “Opening in Spring”, well it’s spring but not open!

Tulips, magnolias, daffodils etc are out and the place would be magnificent in summer with everything else in bloom and green.

The Giant Pagoda, Queen Charlotte’s Cottage and Kew Palace were all closed.

But the treetops walk wasn’t. Annette made me walk the 108 steps to the top.

Flowers from around the world . . .

PS: I really could have done with my macro lens, but it’s still on back order. The wartime scarcity of goods is worse than covid!

A few natives and not so native . . .

and some Aussie trees . . .

The entry to gardens was more than Sherlock Holmes muesum but worth it just in seeing all the upkeep of the place and how well kept it is, but not sure of some eccentric artist’s view of a beehive.