Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha

Brisbane's 56-hectare botanic garden sits at the base of Mt Coot-tha on Yuggera and Turrbal Country, eight kilometres west of the CBD. The site holds Brisbane City Council's working subtropical collections — a pyramidal Tropical Display Dome, a Japanese Garden laid out by Kenzo Ogata in the late 1980s, a bonsai house, a fern gully boardwalk, an Aboriginal plant trail, and arboretum plantings of native rainforest species you don't see in temperate botanic gardens. The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium is on the same grounds but ticketed separately. Free entry, open daily, with a café at the entry pavilion and the Mt Coot-tha summit and lookout a short drive up the hill.