At this Christmas season the walk starts and ends with Christmas bushes. The walk begins on the bitumen road just before the bridge near the café, and ends in the Sydney Basin.

1. On your left [Section 147] is Victorian Christmas Bush Prostanthera lasianthos, a large shrub with lots of white uneven flowers and a carpet of dropped flowers underneath.
2. Continue up the hill on the bitumen road. Take the first road to the right. On your left on the corner [Section 124] is Grevillea ‘Jingle Bells’ a small shrub trained in the shape of a standard rose, with dull orange flower trusses.
3. Straight ahead [Section 124] is a spectacular climber Pandorea jasminoides ‘Lady Di’, with large bright pink flowers. It is growing on a multi-trunked Callistemon.
4. At the end of the road, turn left up the hill. On your left [Section 119] is a group of Tall Kangaroo Paw Anigozanthos flavidus with green kangaroo paw flowers with orange anthers atop tall bare stems. If you are lucky you might see a honeyeater drinking from these flowers.
5. Turn right onto a wide path. After you cross the Main Path, on your right [Section 11] is a large shrub, Crimson Bottlebrush Callistemon citrinus, with large red bottlebrushes.
6. A little farther on, on your right [Section 11] is Calothamnus asper, a spreading low shrub with one-sided red bottlebrushes.
7. Opposite it on your left [Section 9] is Leptospermum wooroonooran, a tree with stringy bark and white starry flowers. It is named after Wooroonooran National Park in far north Queensland, where it was first found on Mt Bellenden Kerr.
8. A little farther on, on your left [Section 9] is Babingtonia odontocalyx, a large rounded shrub with masses of small white flowers.
9. Turn left at the end of the track. On your right [Section 33] is Prickly Paper Bark, Melaleuca styphelioides, a small shrub with small white bottlebrushes. It can grow into a large tree.
10. Cross the Sydney Basin gully, then turn left up the hill. On your left [Section 191f] is Stalked Guinea Flower Hibbertia pedunculata forming a ground cover. It has bright yellow coin-sized flowers. The common name is from the old coin named a guinea.
11. A little farther on, on your left [Section 191q] is Grevillea aspleniifolia, a straggly open shrub with large dark pink tooth brushes. Its specific name means ‘with leaves like the fern Asplenium'. On your right is the Display Glasshouse. Half way down inside it on the left-hand side is a display of carnivorous plants, and at the back end a display of flowering orchids.
12. Nearby on the left going up the hill is [Section 191t] New South Wales Christmas Bush Ceratopetalum gummiferum, a large dense shrub. At present it has small white flowers. When the petals drop off, the sepals will enlarge and turn red.
13. The road is blocked farther on for the machinery which is putting rocks in at the top of the Sydney Basin gully and working in the Red Centre Garden. Turn back and follow the signs to the Sydney Basin and the Main Path. On your right [Section 191u] in the Display Garden, is a group of Christmas Bells Blandfordia grandiflora, with large orange-red bells tipped with yellow, on long bare stalks..

Betty Wood.