Eagle

This sculpture is of an eagle in it's nest perched on the highest point in the new National Arboretum in Canberra. Here, over 48,000 trees have been planted on the 250 hectare site in Canberra. The trees are planted in forests of about 100 trees and represent a hundred countries and are either rare, endangered or symbolic.

We went for an hour and spent most of the day as it was so interesting. It is situated on some hills on the fringe of Canberra where a severe bushfire raged a few years ago destroying a pine plantation, many houses and there was human life taken. It was a surprise to the inhabitants as they felt " safe" in a city but the homes are next to bushland and the fire was very bad. The government wondered what to do with the site and went back to some original ideas from Walter Burley Griffen who designed Canberra. There are two mature forests left, one is of mature Himalayan Cedars and the other a forest of Cork Oaks. They are beautiful. All the other plantations are relatively new and will be such a wonderful place to come in 100 years or so. The cork forest was planted from acorns bought out in 1917 so it is almost 100 years old now. I was surprised at the list of trees they have chosen, some are so rare while others so ordinary.

The eagle is made of steel from bits and pieces found on local farms, you can see the remains of a pine, one of a few to survive the fire, in the background you can see some of the forests with newly planted trees and on the far hill there is the telecom tower on Black Mountain.

There is an amazing cafe and bonsai display, I would love to return....