Grafton Jacarandas

A couple weekends ago we decided to take a break and take a weekend trip. Seeing photos of the jacarandas blooming in Pretoria, South Africa was a good reminder it was probably about jacaranda season in the jacaranda capital of northern NSW: Grafton.

It was good to get out of town, and it was a beautiful drive.
The route we took takes you through Nymboida, which is the home of
Russell Crowe's Museum of Interesting Things. (We haven't been.)

Grafton is an old river port on the Clarence River just about three/three and a half hours drive from here. We've passed through a couple of times in the past and have wanted to come back to town when the jacarandas are blooming since we first visited about a year and a half ago. We've seen jacarandas drives to the coast in the past and knew we wouldn't be disappointed.

Jacaranda street tree

That ultraviolet violet.

One thing I hadn't forgotten about our previous visit to Grafton was an enormous fig tree tucked away on a side street near the river I'd encountered on an afternoon walk. What I hadn't realised in the slightest was that there are streets lined with enormous fig trees, my route last time just hadn't taken me by any of them.

Green tunnel

The jacarandas were amazing and all, but the sheer size
of the figs was doubly impressive. We don't get trees like this in Uralla!

It's a great time of year for blossoms in general in Grafton and we saw so many flowers. And it definitely felt like summer here, after morning showers the air was humid and when the sun came out it was hot—about 30 degrees C or so (86F). Grafton is a humid subtropical climate -- the drive took us first through temperate rainforest and then sugarcane fields as we approached the river valley.

Sitting ducks in a park

Fallen yellow trumpet blossoms

Golden carpet

White jacaranda

We missed the annual Jacaranda Festival by about one week. Grafton has the festival since 1935, apparently one of the longest flower festivals in Australia. Grafton also has some Big Trees. According to the National Registry of Big Trees, the largest jacaranda tree is in Grafton, with a couple other trees making the list including one of those fig trees, a Brazilian Fire Tree and a Australian Teak. (Can't believe I didn't know about the National Registry of Big Trees before?!)

We had a pleasant half day in Grafton including lunch and ice cream cones at an 50s American-style diner to wait out some rain. It was beginning to heat up after our walk around town admiring the flowers, so we took that as our cue to head to the coast. Next up: photos from our trip to Minnie Water!