tui in the kowhai (again)Once again, the Council has put together a great program of events for its annual spring festival. Although there’s no specific website for it, you can download the PDF program here (2.1 Mb, unfortunately). Today (Saturday) is the first day, and it runs through the school holidays to October 9.

We like the look of quite a few things on the go: Fairy Trina (for the kids, right!); night-time Glowworm tours; storytelling; guided forest walks; poetry readings; a naughty native bird show with Harold the kaka; and much much more. Some events are at the native botanic gardens at Otari-Wilton’s Bush, and so there is (very thoughtfully) a gold-coin fare bus running between the Wellington Botanic Garden and gardens and Otari-Wilton’s Bush.

And don’t forget to take your camera with you: there’s a photo competition as well. Photos must be taken in one of Wellington’s botanic gardens. There are three categories: “Garden Life”, “Celebration of Spring”, and “Garden Icons”; and the prize for each category is:

A suite at the Bolton Hotel for a night, dinner at Bisque on Bolton, tickets to Little Shop of Horrors at Downstage Theatre, lunch at the Botanic Gardens Cafe and a beautiful floral photography book.

Entries close Thursday October 6; obtain your entry form and full T&C; here (600k PDF).

So get out of the house, go festivalling, and get snapping then.