Blue Lotus Water Garden — Attraction in Melbourne

Massive improvement since my last visit 7 years ago! The wider unsealed paths, walkways & more features esp. for the kids makes this sprawling Lotus garden a top notch attraction in Warburton. Cafe is under new management & is good too! Pram & wheelchair friendly in most parts.

With rolling hills as a backdrop & reflections on water, this sprawling garden is equally serene & picturesque. Other flowering plants like salvias, impatiens, cannas, begonias plus various shrubs & banana trees add variety & colour.

A garden pass with map is handed out once entry tix is purchased & keep this to re-enter. You don't need this pass for the nursery retail area in front or souvenir shop but will need the pass to get to the Cafe area.

Weekends are busy - so I bought my tix online to save time though you can buy onsite. Parking areas have also been extended with attendants directing where to park.

Byo picnic food - plenty of covered mini pavilions with table seating to enjoy it. BBQ facilities & toilet locations are indicated on the map. Amenities are clean & quite a few dotted around.

The onsite Cafe has been recently taken over by 3 Sugars in Warburton & weekend lunch crowds are huge. Q up to order & pay, get a table number & you will served when order is ready. Pre-made items like sausages, quiches/pies with salad/chips option is served quicker. I had the huge tasty sausage with chips + salad & coffee.

Use the map with detailed info to cover all areas especially along the clear flowing Little Yarra river trail that borders one side. This has interesting info boards & you may spot pretty flitting birds like the...

The Blue Water Lotus Gardens are Freaking AMAZING! I've lived in Melbourne, Victoria my whole life, and I had no idea it even existed! I tried to tick off over the years all the things to do in Victoria but I totally missed the Lotus Gardens. I often passed the entrance and wondered why there was so much traffic coming out of there. Now I know! I checked the pictures on google images, and the pictures looked totally spectacular and I figured from past life experience, it wouldn't be as good as the pictures, like when I visited the pyramids in Egypt, they looked bigger on TV. lol Well the Blue Water Lotus Gardens are surprisingly even better than the pictures on google images! My recommendation is to only go on a Sunny Day with good weather, take the family, take a picnic lunch, or a barbeque, they had plenty of barbeques, idea for a big family get together. I don't know why all the reviews aren't 5 stars, they must be people who nothing makes them happy. I was blown away, and I'm not easily impressed. It was like taking a authentic trip to asia, but it's in Victoria! My personal recommendation to blue Lotus Water Gardens, to make it even more awesome would be to have very very intelligently selected traditional beautiful old style asian music playing, and instead of the fairy lady, get costumes of Magic Monkey Characters they would fit in to the location so perfectly it's not funny! In short, AMAZING, can't wait to take someone new to surprise them.

The Pied Piper was neither paid, coerced or otherwise manipulated into giving this review, but did it of his own free will...

Wish I had brought my own food!

The gardens are amazing, absolutely beautiful. The cafe is atrocious though, they should either just close it down or get a consultant in to advise them on how to fix it. It was seriously the worst food I have ever had. I had the homemade beef ragout pie with salad and chips for $20. The filling of the pie was gag worthy, seemed to have been padded out with mashed potato, had a very weird gluggy texture, they possibly used the beef croquet mix and watered it down, who knows, I couldn’t eat it. Pastry tasted ok but was soft and undercooked. The salad it came with was just a garnish drowned in too much white vinegar and the chips were yellow and so salty my lips are still burning. The sandwich my dining companion had was apparently soggy, but I still wished I’d had that instead of the $20 all time worst pie ever!! The vanilla slice at $8 was actually just whipped cream in between the pastry, not one bit of custard in sight - who does that? And homemade iced tea must translates as mixing that instant powdered Lipton stuff in some cold water and adding a couple of ice cubes. So sweet and so highly processed. And apparently my companions chocolate milkshake tasted strange as well, who knows what they used in that.

Well I’m sorry, but someone had to say it. The worst food I have ever had and disgustingly overpriced as well, spoilt the whole experience.

My advice, don’t go anywhere near the cafe and bring your own picnic instead, there are plenty of tables scattered around the gardens. If you do that it will be a perfect day...