Eden Project

A garden like no other......

I was really excited to be going to visit the Eden Project. These gardens were created in the late 1990s and finally opened in 2001. The brainchild of Tim Smit who also masterminded the reclamation of the Lost Gardens of Heligan. What is remarkable about them is their unlikely location' They sit in the volcano like hole made by a disused china clay mining pit and the three main exhibition areas are housed in futuristic domes such as one might expect to see if you'd landed on the moon sometime in the future.

the biomes of the Eden project

driftwood sculptures

The first view of the gardens is breathtaking! You walk out onto a platform looking down on the pit and it's really a WOW! moment. They have made a clay pit impossibly beautiful.
Because it's a long way down there are buses from the carparks, which are helpfully labelled with fruit names to help you to remember which one to get off at, and then a tractor-pulled land train to take you from the visitor centre at the top down to the lower gardens where the domes are.

the land train

sculpture of a bee

The whole thing has been immaculately planned and executed. No wonder millions of people visit here each year. It's a "must do" if you're ever in this part of the world. It's one of those experiences that you feel might change your life....or at least the way you see things. I was incredibly impressed and moved by it all.

And yes.....there's LOTS of photos! I'm not even going to apologise. I just couldn't help myself.

Here's the recipe for Eden:
* Take an exhausted, steep sided clay pit 60 m deep, the area of 35 football pitches with no soil, 15 metres below the water table
* Carve the pit into a flat-bottomed bowl and landscape the sides.
* Mix and add 83,000 tonnes of soil made from re-cycled waste.
* Add superb architecture that draws inspiration from nature to remind us of human potential
* Colonise with a huge diversity of plants, many that we use every day (but don't often get to see)
* Harvest the water draining into the pit and use it to irrigate the plants (and flush the loos!)
* Season with people from all walks of life.

There you have it! You just have to admire the vision, the passion and the absolute pig-headedness and the "nothing is impossible" attitude that got this project done.

We went into the Mediterranean Biome.Here they have recreated landscapes of the Meditterranean, South Africa and California. Amongst all the plants are scultures included the great bronze statue of Dionysus the bull, standing on his hind legs straddled between the wild and cultivated lands and amazing drifwood sculptures of creatures byHeather Jansch.

Next we walked through to the rainforest biome and immediately noticed the change in climate!
This felt like home to me...and indedd it should. The climate is controlled to mimic the Tropics of Capricorn (where I grew up) and Cancer and the humidity of 90% was doing in some of the visitors who had to resort to the haven of the "cold room", thoughtfully provided for heat affected visitors.
It is the largest rainforest in captivity! It even has quite a big waterfall and a tree canopy walk so you can look down on the forest below.
The whole thing is wonderfully educational and encourages young people to engage with the idea of the importance of conservation and rainforest preservation.

After all that heat and humidity it was time to find a drink! We'd noticed a nice restaurant in the Mediterranean biome, so we headed back there to sit in the shade and drink cooling cider. There's a wonderful big refectory style caffeteria in the link between the biomes. With all it'scoloured bunting it resembles a massive street party. Indeed the Big Lunch is a concept that Eden supports. Communities and neighbourhoods are encouraged to hold big outdoor lunches together so they can get to know each other.
Our neighbourhood back in Maleny does this at Christmas each year....but a lunch mid year might be nice...........

There's a big concert area, which we didn't go in. It's there to try to attract the youger people to the Eden project and it does this very successfully. The newest building is called "the Core". The roof of this building resembles a hedgehog!
Inside it's all about education. The installations are interactive and engaging for all ages.

I was sad to leave this beautiful place! We walked for some time around the open air gardens which are also dotted with sculptures, mostly made from recycled rubbish. It was a truly inspiring day.

Afterwards , because it was so close, we went in to St Austell for a cuppa and to try and find some haberdashery we required for our craft projects. St Astell is a large town and had a very lovely stone cathedral, but the shopping area seemed a bit run down.

On the drive back I spotted a pyramid shaped hill that looked like Mt Fuji with a snow capped peak. It was in fact a china clay slag heap! They don't use this type of slag heap now after one collapsed and killed people below in the landslide.

Mt Fuji?