WOX TRAVEL CONTEST | WEEK 10 || The National Rock Garden, Canberra

In response to my fellow traveler @benoitblanc, I am pleased to submit my today's visit to The National Rock Garden, Canberra.

  

When you visit this garden, you feel like you are watching Australia's Geological Heritage. I was glad today was a beautiful sunny day so I could capture bright images with my phone.

The National Rock Garden in Canberra is all about Australia's rich geological heritage in a parkland setting, with a permanent display.

The National Rock Garden in Canberra is a popular recreation area. It has an interesting geological history that can be inspected along numerous nature trails.

If you happen to walk in this area, you'll feel like you're witnessing the diversity of rocks and minerals that contribute so significantly to the landscapes, heritage, and prosperity of this beautiful country.

Today I will tell my dear Steemian friends the story of Australia and its people through a pictorial of rocks that will take you by surprise.

This rock garden hosts hundreds of large rocks that weigh five to twenty tons each. The logo here suggests the National Rock Garden, where every rock has a story.

These rocks were brought here from across Australia and other parts of the continent.

Here you will witness rocks of various wonderful types, which include fossils and ore. For your information, Australia is ore rich, and a large part of its income comes from ore exports.

I was astonished to see that each of the rocks present in this park has a fascinating story of its own.

I tried to gather information from the guide with us, but he had so much to explain, which was not even possible to write in one post, so I decided to walk through the Rock Garden and enjoy what I saw.

I hope I will be able to explain my journey, which was like charting the evolution of this wonderful continent, which, as they say, lasted for four billion years.

I hope this unique collection of rocks that I am displaying through my images My Steemian friends will learn the importance of rocks, which the indigenous Australians keep so reverently and close to their hearts.

Our guide told us that the idea of this national rock garden was first proposed by a geologist in 2008. Let me mention here that this city is not too old but came into existence a little over 100 years ago.

There are aboriginal heritage stories on some rocks.

Actually, when a few Australian geologists visited Finland and traveled in that country, they felt that the Finns preserved the diverse geology of their country. They did some of that through the collections of rocks across Finland.

They used these rocks for educational purposes. So Caryl played with this idea in his mind and thought about the possibility of similar rock specimens in Canberra.

So they started the search and saw a magnificent collection of rocks in front of the Heureka Science Center. This gave him an idea, and he had a talk with Australia's Capital Territory Geological Society about doing something similar.

As we all know, Canberra already has other national collections like the National Botanic Gardens, the National Zoo and Aquarium, the National Library, the National War Memorial, the National Mint, etc., so they decided to establish the National Rock Garden in Canberra.

As per Australian tradition, every proposal needs the consent of locals, so they talked to local people from all walks of life about having large, iconic rocks from all over Australia displayed in a park-like setting in Canberra.

The locals did not disappoint them, but they found it a great idea.

They started the process and soon found enough vacant land on the western side of Lake Burley Griffin in 2009. Let me remind you that the city of Canberra is located around this artificial lake, so you will find everything close to this lake.

So once they approached the authorities with their proposal, they immediately got the nod, and in 2010, the National Rock Garden was launched.

Today, as we walked in this forest, which is about one hectare in area, we drove right up to Forest Drive, which is the main access, and walked about 100 meters from the parking lots.

And as if the large and iconic rocks were not attractive enough, the rock garden is planting trees from around Australia.

I was told that more Weeping Wilga trees will be planted in an indigenous pattern in this forest.

I was there for close to 3 hours and saw people coming from far and wide. I could witness a strong sense of adventure and excitement in each of them as they touched and inspected the rocks.

But the children were the ones who were most excited. I saw a group of scout children who were enjoying rocks and trees.

I could see that the gathered crowd included the Aboriginals and even geologists who were there to study.

I have visited different parks with different themes, but this park was a bit different from the other national parks.

I feel the reason could be that this national park has a lot to tell you about geology, or more precisely, its fossil record, which provides the world’s richest and most diverse records of the continent's history through geology.

Of course, the people who understand the value of geology know that it can give you all insight into how animal life on Earth started millions of years ago.

Canberra 6.25 PM, 11th February 2024.

I Transfereds In Total: 1748.304 STEEM and paid 31 Steem as rewards in the last three months, so I remain in club 100