Beautiful weather in Sydney: about 20°C, clear blue sky. Off we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens and got treated to the sight of about 5 men and a girl taking down, piecemeal, a very large tree that we were told was killed by the fruit bats (flying foxes) that live in (or infest, depending on your viewpoint) the Gardens. These bats are HUGE! I estimate their wingspan at about 2 feet and they were either flying about (no doubt disturbed by the chain saws) or hanging about in most of the trees throughout the Gardens. Feisty things they were, too! If one landed too close to another it unfurled its wings and started fighting off the interloper.
After we got bored trying to get a decent photo of the bats we wandered about the Gardens just enjoying all the plants. Even though it is winter, there were lots in bloom including a beautiful euphorbia. We were going to go to the Sex & Death exhibit (orchids & carnivorous plants) but we just ran out of time.
We did however, manage to hook up with a tour just about the time we were in the succulent and cactus garden. We also managed to see the Wolemi pine, the “dinosaur plant.” It was thought to be extinct for millions of years and to exist only as fossils until 1994 when a hiker ( David Noble, hence Wollemia nobilis) stumbled across it in Wollemi National Park. He brought it for identification to the university which initially identified it as a Chinese pine and only later realized it was a plant previously thought extinct.
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