edmonton

muttart conservatory

pretty flower

gaia earth mother

the tropical pyramid

me in the flowery one

from the outlaying parklands

beautiful flowers

city of edmonton

Saturday 12th June

Today we spent in Edmonton and there were two things that we really wanted to do. The first was going to be the Muttart Conservatory and the second was the West Edmonton Mall.

The Muttart Conservatory is a botanical garden located in the North Saskatchewan river valley, across from downtown Edmonton. The conservatory consists of four glass, pyramid-shaped structures that showcase plants from arid, tropical, and temperate climates, providing a welcome oasis of warmth during winter. The fourth pyramid hosts a theme that changes throughout the year and this year it was full of flowering plants. The two larger' pyramids are 660 square meters in area, and the two medium-sized ones are 410 square meters in size. Three of the pyramids are devoted to displays of plants from the tropical, temperate, and arid regions respectively, the fourth being used for shows that change with the seasons and which feature massed displays of ornamental flowering plants. It was a great place to see, we also had a 40 minute tour that was conducted by a young man who talked about the reproduction of plants. It was very interesting and Bronte and I were the only two on the tour. It was good as a lot of the plants were from Australia and we could talk about them and recognise them. We spent a good couple of hours at the Conservatory finishing off with walking around through the parkland which surrounds the structure before heading to the mall.

west edmonton mall

europa boulevard

triple roller coaster

some animals on display

world waterpark

water slides

ice skating

indoor mini golf

The shopping centre was about 10 to 15 kms outside the downtown area and was the largest shopping centre in the world until recently. It is 5.3 million square feet and spams 48 city blocks, it was originally built in 1981 and has had 3 other expansions since with the last one in 1998. It has the worlds largest indoor amusement park, the worlds largest triple loop roller coaster, the largest indoor wave pool, the largest indoor lake and the largest car parking to name a few world records. It has more than 800 stores and a number of themed areas such as Bourbon Street and Chinatown. It has a mini golf course and an indoor ice skating rink right in the centre of the shopping centre. So needless to say we spent a number of hours walking around and looking at all there was to see. It was packed with people in all the different areas in particular the wave pool and the water slides, the weather was so nice and I think the locals were taking advantage of it.

Once we left the shopping centre we took the car to a car wash as it was really dirty and then headed back to the motel to decide what to have for dinner. We ended up having KFC and it was very disappointing to say the least. Tomorrow we are heading for Regina in Saskatchewan. It will be about an 800km trip but there is not much to see along the way.