Give me a home among the gum trees...

...There's a Safeways up the corner

And a Woolies down the street

And a brand new place they've opened up

Where they regulate the heat

But I'd trade them all tomorrow

For a little bush retreat

Where the kookaburras call

Give me a home among the gumtrees

With lots of plum trees

A sheep or two, a k-kangaroo

A clothesline out the back

Verandah out the front

And an old rocking chair

On my way to and from work I drive through the Jervis Bay National Park. It is actually an enormous national park of some 4,211 hectares and from the road (as I am racing to and from work lol) it simply looks like a lot of gum trees. Well, this afternoon as I was driving home I noticed a lot of white flowers everywhere.

How odd I thought. It was amazing to see so many and I wondered what tree they belonged to. Could you believe that they were attached to gumtrees. I was gobsmacked.

I never knew that gumtrees flowered. I knew that they had gumnuts but I never realized that they had flowers as such. So I eventually pulled over to the side of the road, got my trusty camera out of the boot and went for a stroll throught the bushes. It was an amazing walk and I learned a lot very quickly.

The flowers changed colour further in and some were cream, some red and some looked a very pretty pink colour.

Because they were so high up in the trees it was hard to initially look close at them however, patience and a further walk lead me to some lower lying flowers.

Up close they actually look as though there are no petals. They look more like a group of showy stamens.

The older flowers towards to the tops of the trees look as though the stamens have split away from the base which is the shape of a cup.

I can not wait for Autumn and Springtime down here now. Can you imagine what else I am going to find on a simple walk throught the national parks.