Hunter Valley Gardens

We woke up to a splendid morning with azure blue skies and a blanket of huge, fluffy clouds. The clouds looked deceivingly 3-dimensional, and for just a split second, I actually contemplated reaching out my arms to touch them.

The plan for the day was to visit Hunter Valley Gardens, home to 10 feature gardens spanning over 25 acres. We love taking long walks in the park and admiring the glorious blooms while taking in the alluring scents and captivating sights. Flowers are natural mood lifters and we felt instantly refreshed. 

One garden that I particularly liked was the Formal Garden. Infused with French and English influences, this magnificent garden features beautifully manicured hedges and lawns. It brought back fond memories of our travels in Europe, where we used to spend at least a month out of the entire year in our favourite continent. 

Wanderlust is an incurable addiction, and as I am penning this post, I am reminiscing about Versailles in Paris, Eagle's Nest in Austria, Sagrada Familia in Spain and Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic. There are many parts of Europe left unexplored, and I hope to return soon to visit Switzerland and Greece.

Daydreams aside, I remember it was an absolute joy to be surrounded by abundant flowers, shrubs and trees. The picturesque gardens make spectacular photography backdrops, but nothing beats being there in real life.

This trail of poppies was a hot favourite among avid photographers, who stood there for what seemed like an eternity, trying to perfect each and every shot. As you can tell, I was more interested in using the lovely poppies as my backdrop haha.

The Rose Garden was probably where I belonged that day. My outfit was completely unplanned and coincidentally, the rose on my sleeve is just as huge as the real roses in the garden!

Cherry Blossoms are a familiar sight in Australia in Spring too. I remember the road leading up to my apartment was lined with glorious cherry blossoms from September all the way till about early November. Ah, the perks of living in a country with four seasons.

I am infatuated with dandelions too. I know they are pests, but I would marvel at these fuzzy, cottony plants with childlike wonder without fail, every time. I love blowing on them, seeing the little seeds take flight and parachute to the ground.

Before I entered Hunter Valley Gardens, I heard about its Storybook Garden, where you'll find characters from Alice in Wonderland and other fairytales as well as nursery rhymes. That piqued my curiosity and the long walk through the other feature gardens only served to build up my excitement as I waited eagerly in anticipation for the storybook characters to be unveiled.

A huge storybook stood with its pages open, marking the entrance of the garden.

On the other end of the entrance sat a pile of equally ginormous books stacked carelessly in a haphazard fashion, one on top of the other. Cuteness overload!

The childlike spirit in us manifested as we hopped from one nursery rhyme display to another, with silly smiles plastered on our faces, completely oblivious to our surroundings.

Humpty Dumpty was the most popular display and it was perpetually surrounded with children attempting to climb on top of its egg of a head. LOL.

I loved the Jack and Jill display as I thought it captured the essence of the nursery rhyme. The expressions on the statues' faces are priceless!

Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon,
The little Dog laughed to see such sport,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.

 JW really looks like he's running away with the dish and the spoon! Can you see the spoon looking at him with adoring eyes? Haha

Finally, here's the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter's Tea Party that I was so looking forward to!

 Can you spot me?

There we were, playing the fool and pretending to bite into the rock hard chocolate cake! It was quite a surreal experience to be a guest at this fairytale tea party. ;)

Words can't express how much I love the set, so if you are a fan of Alice in Wonderland (like me!), remember to visit this garden when you're Hunter Valley!

Top from MDS

Jeans from Mango

Shoes from Rubi

Bag from Louis Vuitton