Adelaide Botanic Garden

A short walk from the city centre, Adelaide's botanic garden has kept its Victorian bones since 1857: formal avenues, a lily pond, and the oldest glasshouse in any Australian botanic garden - the elegant 1877 Palm House, shipped in pieces from Germany. The Bicentennial Conservatory encloses a slab of lowland rainforest beneath its great curved glass, and the Museum of Economic Botany is a rare survivor of its kind. Moreton Bay figs arch over the main walk and a wetland draws waterbirds within earshot of North Terrace. Entry is free, and the garden threads neatly into a day among the adjacent museums and galleries.