Begonia Festival

The Ballarat Begonia Festival was actually last weekend, but the begonia display is still open:

And now it's not full of people.

Amazing blooms that look almost unreal:

There's lots to see outside in the Botanic Gardens, too, such as these flower baskets on sticks in the lily pond:

And topiary hiding in the garden beds:

 A pair of elephants above, and wallabies that won't eat roses below:

Across the road at Lake Wendouree, a white-necked heron kept an eye on us as we walked past:

 And a swan came over to either chase the dogs away or see if we had food for it:

I didn't notice until I got home that the camera had helpfully focussed on that little bit of dead grass instead of the swan. But that doesn't matter too much, because the important thing in this photo is how much duckweed was on the surface of the water. You know it is duckweed, I know it is duckweed, but Dot found out the hard way that it wasn't a lovely green lawn she could run across. The funniest part was that she tried it three times before giving up! Jack, who loves to splash in puddles, had to swim when he tried the splashing trick elsewhere in the lake. That was a deep puddle!

Fortunately it was a nice warm afternoon, so the two wet dogs dried off before we got back to the car.