What does one do while living in Melbourne, Australia on a beautiful, warm “Spring” day in “October”? Yes I said Spring and October in the same sentence! You take a drive through the Dandenong Ranges to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival. For us Americans driving to see the tulips in October seems a bit odd because we are normally planting our bulbs instead of appreciating their beauty, but Down Under it is a yearly tradition to drive up through the Dandenong Ranges to the Tulip Festival. So on 10/10/10 with the address programmed into our handy, dandy, life-saving GPS; The Thomas Family took off to the Tulip Festival.
The drive up was gorgeous. We were winding our way through the Dandenongs feeling as if we were in a forest/rainforest setting. We saw huge trees, evergreens and palm trees all in the same setting. These pictures were taken through the windsheild so there is a bit of a glare, but you can still see the beauty.
The Tulip Festival runs mid September to mid October every year. There are more than a million spring flowering bulbs including over half a million tulips on show throughout the festival. There is live entertainment on stage every day. You can indulge in traditional Dutch foods and other treats, find treasures in the souvenir stall, see beautiful garden displays and pick a bunch of Tulips.
The weekend we visited was Irish Weekend. There were Irish Pipers walking the grounds, Irish Dancers dancing on stage and of course a Guiness and Kilkenny Bar. We dined on hot dogs (more like our kielbasa) and beer (soda for the kids of course) for lunch and enjoyed a plate of Dutch Poffertje (pronounced “Pof-fur-ches”) for dessert. A walk around the grounds and the fields snapping many pictures along the way ended our beautiful “Spring” day in “October”.
MY FAVORITE TULIP
A TULIP FOR OUR "TULIP"
IRISH DANCING
DUTCH POFFERTJES (TEENY, TINY PANCAKES)