Kew 2

 

Thursday 12 September

Up early again today and after breakfast Elaine and I decided to see Kew Gardens as the rain was holding off. We ended up walking all day. As we are at the Richmond end of the gardens we started at the Lion Gate and walked past the Pagoda to Queen Charlotte's Cottage passing a real badger set on the way.

 

Nex to the Thames and then walk back along the lake. The black swans that we used to visit and say g'day to are no longer there, just white swans. We did the new tree top walk and found a huge sweet chestnut tree with dozens of Blue Tits in it.

The Temperate House was closed so we made our way to Victoria Gate where there is a cafe and shop and had a coffee and our own biscuits. It was then time for the hop-on/hop-off visitor 'train' to leave so we travelled on it back through the southern end of the gardens that we had already walked through to get off near the Orangery. There was a great eucalyptus plantation that reminded us of home.

 

Our first building to visit was the newly opened Palace Kitchens. It turned out that this was the house that Helen and family had lived in when they were at Kew. Amazing to see it all stripped out and redone as a museum.

 

Next was Kew Palace and its garden. 

 

We then sat on the Broadwalk for lunch near some giant woven fungus sculptures. A little squirrel came looking for crumbs around our feet while we sat there.

 

We then walked around the more intensly maintained corner of the gardens that included the Grass Gardens, glasshouses, Alpine House, and rock garden. There was a really colourful chameleon in one of the glasshouses and I heard the gardener saying they don't know how it got there.

 

 

 

We walked through the Palm House with its magnificent iron structure and tall palms and other tropical plants and also visited the marine exhibit in its basement.

 

As we then had about half an hour to wait for the next 'train' we decided to walk back down Syon Vista to the Minke House and Bamboo Garden. As we finished there the 'train' reached that stop so we had a ride back to Victoria Gate. We then walked back to Lion Gate and thence to Mary's, arriving there just after she had got home.

Mary had to rush out to take her Brownie troop but came back for a quick dinner before going back out (with us in tow) to her two choir practices. We were allowed to join in both. The first was a community choir and the second were practising Motzart's Sparrow Mass (new to me) and Cantique de Jean Racine (which I knew from Sutherland Shire Choral Society).

 

After practice a few of us went to the local pub (Kew Inn) and enjoyed a chat with others from the choir.

I'm not sure how many steps we've done today but it must have been very large. These follwed by two hours mostly standing at choir practices meant we were very tired when we eventually dropped into bed.

Friday 13 September

Up and out again this morning after Mary and John had left. This time we caught the R68 bus down to Kew Retail Park which did not exist when I was here in the 1980s. Here we did a bit of shopping at Marks and Spencers and had time to sort out what was setting off shop alarms every time I walked in and out.

We then walked along Mortlake Rd and over Kew Bridge to find the Musical Museum. We arrived there a little early but had the doors opened for us and given somewhere to sit to have our morning tea whilst waiting for the tour to start.

The museum is dedicated to instruments that play themselves in some way - music boxes, record players, street organs, pianolas and a wurlitzer organ in a concert hall. The tour guide actually demonstrated many of the instruments which was fantastic and as there were only 5 people taking the free tour we were able to as questions and move close to see everything.



 

We were then able to catch the 65 bus all the way to Mary and John's stop. We tooka short walk further up Kew Rd to find Geoff's preschool. The church it had been in has been converted into flats now but was still almost recognisable.

Back to have lunch at Mary's and then for a drive with her through Richmond Park in the rain. It is a bit like a huge version of Centennial Park in Sydney except there is a huge number of deer. As it was raining quite heavily we did not do a walk. Back in Richmond the rain had eased so we parked and did a short walk along the river to see the new developments and beautiful views along the river.

 

 

Home again to settle in, prepare dinner and top up Oyster cards for our travel tomorrow. After dinner we watched a video "A Lion Called Christian" about a lion cub bought by two Australian men in the sixties from the Harrods pet department. A very interesting film.