I was back to Wilson Botanical Gardens today
(see this blog entry for my last visit) but this time was with a friend who has an amazing knowledge of all things Australian so today was very different from the last walk around the gardens. (Annette worked as a travel guide and has traveled the length and breadth of the country and I always say if the end is nigh I am heading to her place and joining her pack because I know that she and her family will survive-even the zombie apocalypse!!!! As part of their training they learnt how to find water in a desert, to find food and medicine in things I would never have considered.)
It's also autumn, my favourite time of year-the colours are amazing and it was nice to see the
gardens in their orange and golden glory. While we were walking through the gardens Annette pointed out the Wollemi Pine to me, which I had noticed but didn't think anything of until she told me that up until the early 1990s the Wollemi Pine was thought to be extinct (or the
botanical version of). It is classified as critically endangered and is legally protected in Australia. It is fairly remarkable to think that the oldest fossil of the Wollemi pine has been dated to 200 million years ago-something that was around with the dinosaurs is still in existence today (even if there was a moment that we thought it was lost forever)
When you see something like this, it makes you definitely think about what we are doing to the environment and how many things have been or are going to be lost to the coming generations and maybe it's time to start doing something about it, and even the smallest things count, like making sure you recycle and reuse-as the say one small step............