Centennial Park

Near my home is Centennial Park, "a 189-hectare grand park in the Victorian period tradition featuring formal gardens, ponds, grand avenues, statues, historic buildings and sporting fields", so they say.





I go there and walk about, or sit in the cafe.





But when you come to visit, you might like to ride horses, or cycle.





Or walk your dog.





Several years ago, I met a friend for weekly walks through that Spring. We found a clutch of five cygnets with their parents, and on every walk after that we looked for them and watched their progress. One day, having not been for a while, there was no sign of five fluffy birds. We were sad. Then we spied a group of seven swans, and realised five of them were smaller than the other two. Our cygnets had fledged, and were now rambuctuous teenagers.





Meeting anyone who regularly used the Park during that time, I realised we all watched over that family group, somehow heartened that all of the babies survived the cold and the predators and grew up under our eyes.





They all only had one head, though.