Sunday lunch - in Paradise

Today, we went to a friends place for lunch.

As always, we were spoilt rotten with wonderful food, excellent company & magnificent views.

The garden.. is many acres.. not sure exactly how many.. 10 I think?

This garden puts most botanical gardens to shame. Many species of plants from all over the globe inhabit this property - even some that are NOT supposed to grow in this part of the world.

Many years of love and much hard work has gone into it, and it shows. I would dearly love to buy this house & land should it ever come on the market. Although, I do not see that happening - who could ever leave it?

From the balcony (which we always have lunch on) we feasted not only on the yummy souffle & homegrown salad for lunch but also on the wonderful view which spreads right out to the coast. It's only about a 20 minute drive to the water, so even though you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere...it's not far back to the bump & grind of the 'burbs.

As always, don't forget you can click on the photographs to enlarge them

View from the balcony.

One of the paths I love!

Hard to show in photographs,

but the diversity of plant life is incredible.

I stuck a little stick man on this photo

to show you just how tall some of these trees are..

still doesn't really show it.. shame.

The colours are amazing

and the trees shade you from the vicious sun.

Imagine laying back in a swiming pool to this view?

This is a type of magnolia but I'm unsure which one.

The flowers are like orchids.

The petals are wax like,

the flowers last for a long time on the tree.

Be nice in a floral arrangement too I think..

what ya think Hope? lol

The orange flowers here are called Bird of Paradise (Strelizia reginae). I know that one of our friends, from Canada, pays a huge amount of money for just a single Bird of Paradise flower. Here, they grow like weeds! .. sorry Rox!

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The big grassy tree next to it is called a 'Blackboy' (Xanthorrhoea australis) but I think the new politically correct name is Grass Tree. It was called a Blackboy due to its dark coloured trunk. The dark colour was either the result of natural aging or by the scorching from wildfires (which helps them germinate). As this Grass Tree (Blackboy) was in a healthy wet garden, you can not see its trunk.

Another theory on the history of the name Blackboy is that this strange looking tree was named by the early settlers of Australia. They named it such because to them it resembled, from a distance, an Aborigine with a spear. Not quite sure how they could make that mistake.. they look very different to me .. so I go with the first explanation.

'Blackboy' OR 'Grass Tree'(Xanthorrhoea australis)

Bananas are cut from the tree in the garden

then hung on the balcony to ripen

this is done so the Fruit Bats (Flying Foxes)

don't feast on them before we do!

Mel, this is their Kaffir Lime tree..

and I'm holding the fruit for you to see also

Some of the home grown produce.

Oranges, Bananas, Avocado, Tomato, Capsicum, Mandarins,

Lemons and a very odd looking yellow critter..

This is the critter.

It is a Buddha's Hand or

(Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus)

Now that's one weird fruit!

This was one of the first crops

The next ones will be bigger!

We came home with a bag full of home grown goodies. We are spoilt !

So that concludes our wonderful afternoon.

I will endeavor to take a decent camera with me next time as all these photographs were, once again, taken with my camera phone.