Otari Native Botanic Garden.

Lately, we've really been missing our regular weekend hikes that we'd go on, so we decided to do some exploring on my holiday time off. There's a nice forest filled with trails called the Otari Native Botanic Gardens, so we figured that would be a great place to start. We packed a yummy lunch and drove 25 minutes to this wonderful spot. When we entered. we were immediately taken aback with the lushness of the forest, the rich earthy smells and the sounds of all the birds.
One of the bird's songs sounded just like R2D2!


As usual, Ronan was the group leader and blazed the trail for us. He sure missed the weekly hikes too and made up for lost time with boundless energy on the trails.



There were these beautiful, giant fern trees that filled the forest.

After hiking for a while, we came to a beautiful, grassy clearing that was surrounded by a babbling creek. Ronan had to spend some time throwing rocks in the water, which is something he could do for hours. There was a very neat thing here too...coin operated, gas barbecues for people to use when picnicking. Next time we come back, we're going to have a BBQ.



Lil' Liam got to ride in style on the back of mommy. He loved the adventure, but you could tell that he can't wait 'till he can hike on his own.


I saw this spiral branch, which I thought looked very pretty and a little strange.

Here we saw a cute little Ronan monkey. You can identify them by their fair skin and shrill laughter.


My beautiful Lisa stopped to look at the pretty purple flowers that greeted us at the end of our trip.

It was a great day and with so much more to see there, we'll be back soon.