AfterDARK Firefly Tour: a little night magic at the Botanic Gardens

Posted on 4 July, 2014

If someone had told me about a month ago that walking around a garden, at night time, with children, holding real fire and in the middle of a Canberra winter was fun, I’d have ‘smiled and nodded’ and disagreed with you in my head.

However, since taking my family to the AfterDark Firefly Tour at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in June, I stand corrected. Walking in a beautiful garden, with handmade tea light lanterns, on a crisp still night, in the middle of winter, with my little family and a bunch of other Canberrans, was actually a fantastic night.

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If you’ve had the privilege of visiting our exquisite gardens in the day time, you’ll know how blessed we are to have such a wonderful attraction right in our own backyard. I’ve had many day visits there. Rainforest boardwalks are a great way to tire out an adventurous toddler and the beautiful lawns with birds and kangaroos have made many a perfect picnic spot. It’s one of my kids favourite places to visit.

From best friend’s weddings to casual coffee catch ups, I’ve got lots of fond memories of the Botanic Gardens and now I can add one more.

Walking through the gardens at night is an entirely new experience! Our whole family really enjoyed the AfterDARK Firefly Tour. Here’s how it went down…

At 6.30pm we arrived at the meeting point where we were greeted with hot chocolate and biscuits (I’m a nutritionist, so my kids thought they’d died and gone to heaven) and a total of 60 other people who’d come along for the tour. Who said Canberrans don’t do anything in winter?!

Our first task was to make our own tea-light lantern to take out on our walk. Now, I’m not a crafty person. I wish I was, but you can’t be good at everything (just jokes)! Anyway, to give you an idea of how I feel about craft; I send my children to preschool and pay lots of money so other people can do craft with them. It doesn’t happen in our home. So… I felt that being in this controlled craft environment that it was my time to shine. Children, let me show you how it’s done!

Moving right along.

My kids are 5 and 4, so they needed a bit of help, but the older kids in the group were killing it, making their lanterns like pros. It was actually highly amusing to watch the adults, especially the perfectionists, and particularly when the whole punch lady came and punched holes in the wrong spot on their lanterns. It was great lesson in letting go.

Apart from my son (4yrs) being confined to a chair for 45 minutes and thinking that his lantern was a rather noisy rocket, my husband trying to apply double sided tape with intricate precision a and my daughter (5yrs) eating about a 1000 chocolate biscuits, we got there in the end and it was really fun!

Then it was walk time. We got split up into groups, each with our own tour guide and away we went, lanterns in hand, off into the dark.

Our tour guide was fantastic. Obviously passionate about his work, he showed us his favourite plants, described why they were the way they were, what their special adaptation was and why it’s important for us to work hard at protecting them. The first year biology nerd in me loved every second. I have so much admiration for chlorophyll and root systems!

My favourite part was the rainforest boardwalk all lit up with little white and green lights. Lovely.

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The great thing was, that although it was only 8-9 degrees celsius, it was completely still. No wind at all. Canberra had really done me proud. The crisp air was really refreshing and invigorating. My son enjoyed ‘puffing smoke’ while breathing. It’s the little things that count.

I think that older kids would have appreciated the tour more so than mine, but on our way home they still said they really loved the walk and holding their special lanterns in the dark.

Some quotes from the night:

My son: Why does the man keep stopping?

My daughter: Mum, I’m really scared in the dark but I’m not fussing (Bless her).

My son: When is the man going to stop talking?

My daughter: Can I have another biscuit?

the essentials

What: AfterDARK Firefly Tour
Where: Australian National Botanic Gardens
When: 6:30pm on Friday 11 and 18 July
Web: www.anbg.gov.au/gardens/whatson. Bookings via the ANBG website.