This year our annual visit to Floriade was a little different.  Astrid was going to be performing with her Kindy classmates during the first week of the Spring flower festival.  Since there was no way we wanted to miss her big moment on stage, our Floriade visit was timed to watch the Kindy drummers do their thing.

Floriade runs from mid-September to mid-October in Commonwealth Park, here in Canberra.  The kids love going to see the flowers and there are usually a range of other activities, including a ferris wheel, jumping castle and a petting zoo and reptile exhibit. We have managed to go each of the previous 3 years and the kids look forward to it every year. I love a good flower photo, so also look forward to our annual trip.

This year we have had an incredibly wet and not overly warm Spring. Astrid was performing in the first week of the festival and I wasn’t sure how many flowers would be out.  We normally try to visit in the second half of the festival. There is always a good display of flowers but if you time it right, it can be amazing.

It had of course been heavily raining the day before the Floriade performance, but luckily it looked like the rain would hold off on performance day.  We dropped Astrid at school, along with a bunch of very excited Kindergarten kids, who were all raring to get onto the bus and out to Commonwealth park.

Soren and I made our own way there along with Grandpa (aka Trevor), so we could have a wander around and check out the flowers before watching the drumming spectacular.

Being mid-week, before school holidays, and damp and cool, it was the quietest I’ve ever seen Floriade! There were plenty of flowers to check out but it certainly wasn’t in full bloom, and there were lots of flowers not even close to opening.

That didn’t stop us from having a good wander around and admiring the flowers that were out.  The area down by the lake was looking pretty nice, and we had some friendly swans come to say hello!

We met up with a few of the other parents and younger siblings from school. Our planned visit to the petting zoo had to be abandoned as the petting zoo had been closed due to too much mud!  We consoled Jessie and Soren with a jump on the jumping castle and checking out the giant human butterfly.

We’d seen the kids arrive and they had been having a wonderful time wandering around the flowers before their performance. Soon it was time for the Kindy drummers to go on stage. The level of excitement was rather high!!

They looked positively tiny up on the rather large Stage 88, perched behind their drums.  You couldn’t wipe the smiles of their faces as they drummed away…….

There was a great turnout of parents, grandparents and friends to watch the Kindy drummers. Most of us had now seen this drumming performance a couple of times but it doesn’t get any less cute!  Astrid was stoked that Anto and Granny (aka Di) had also made it.

Drumming done, it was rapidly approaching Soren’s nap time so we had to head home while the Kindy’s enjoyed a bit more time at Floriade.  We ended up making it around most of the flower displays but hoped to come back in a week or two’s time to see them in full bloom and check-out the petting zoo or reptiles.

Despite our best intentions, and the weather not cooperating, we didn’t make it back this year.  I saw quite a few photos taken later in the festival and it looks like we missed the best of the flower display, but it still wasn’t too shabby…. and there is always next year!  Who knows, there might even be another drumming performance to go and watch.

If you want to check out any of my photos from previous years visits to Floriade you can find them under ‘Floriade’ in the categories drop down list on the home page of the blog, or click on ‘Floriade’ at the bottom of this post…….