Rainforest in a bubble

Below me the rainforest stretched away, 50-metre high trees spreading their lush canopies over a jungle festooned with creepers, dense foliage and bright tropical blossoms. A small green bird flitted among a bank of flowers, while a thundering waterfall sent a fine misty spray into the air.

The bird’s eye view of a tropical rainforest is not one that people can normally experience with ease, and it was made more otherworldly by the location of this particularly verdant example of the earth’s great green lungs.

I wasn’t in the Brazilian Amazon but rather in south-western England, and the rainforest I was gazing down on was safely ensconced in a gigantic bubble plonked in the midst of very English countryside.

Here, in the curious domes of the Eden Centre, it appeared that anything was possible.

The Eden Centre has just entered its second decade, having opened to the public on May 17, 2001. Situated in an abandoned mineral quarry near the town of St Blazey in Cornwall, construction of this futuristic project took over two and a half years.

The domes themselves are incredible structures, looking like gigantic globes ensconced in bubble-wrap, and they house the aforementioned rainforest along with another biome labelled as ‘Mediterranean’.

It was quite disorienting to be in the middle of the English countryside one moment, then wandering through a humid rainforest the next, but this is the Eden experience in a nutshell.

Cynics may assume that the Eden Centre is just a glorified greenhouse, but it is actually much more than that. In fact, it exists mainly as an interactive education centre, geared towards adults and children alike.

As well as the more classical labels identifying the multitude of plants, there were boards describing everything from the impact of palm oil plantations on Indonesian rainforests, to the manifold and diverse uses of that most infamous of plants, cannabis sativa, also known as marijuana.

Education starts on arrival, where we were greeted by a thought-provoking display showing what would happen to the world if plants suddenly ceased to exist. The life-sized, mechanised diorama centred on a happy couple in their kitchen, with a faithful cat busy lapping at a bowl of milk under the table. Over the next few minutes, more and more items around them started to disappear, each whisked away by various mechanical means until at the end, the previously smiling couple were lying naked and dead (along with the cat) in a room devoid of anything.

Take home message – without plants, we would all simply cease to exist. Rather obvious of course, but played out in such a stark and visual fashion it really made you think about the implications a little more carefully.

The centre pieces of Eden are the domes, and after our rainforest experience, we moved on to the dry environs of the ‘Mediterranean’ biome. Here, a Greek farmhouse complete with a grove of olive trees rubbed shoulders with the otherworldly vegetation of the South African fynbos and numerous cacti of varying shapes and sizes. Large statues of Minotaur and semi-naked humans cavorted around the cacti, apparently depicting an ancient Greek religious event.

My nostrils quickly caught the scent of food, and following the savoury smells we found an eating area where stalls sold roasted haloumi, oven-baked pizzas and various olive-based delicacies.

A remarkably large lady laboriously stirred a giant vat of Spanish stew and we gravitated her way, eventually wandering off clutching steaming mugs of vegetables.

Outside the domes, the gardens themselves were also worthy of attention, particularly as they were now bathed in rare English sunshine. One area was devoted to organic farming while another considered the industrial uses of a wide range of plants.

Among the flowers emerged curious statues of giant bees and god-like figures studded with spikes and metal plates.

Looming over all of these was the 3.3 ton bulk of the ‘Wee Man’, whose skeletal form was composed of a bewildering mixture of metal waste including computers, microwaves, sinks, fans and vacuums.

Why, one was compelled to ask? Because this towering behemoth incorporated all of the electronic waste that a single human uses in their lifetime and throws away. A sobering thought indeed.

There was also plenty for families with children to do. A train, dragged about by a tractor encircled part of the Eden Centre grounds and we sat in it as it trundled along in sedate fashion past brightly coloured flowers.

Among the Wee Man and his ilk there were children’s play areas, with slides and sandpits, tunnels made out of living plants and mazes composed of bamboo.

In the information centre a number of exhibits had been created for little hands to play with, while the Eden Centre also ran a number of children’s activities, including the ‘Shaun the Sheep Olympics’, which sadly were not on during our visit.

In the Mediterranean biome there was even the opportunity for children to cook, as little ones rolled their own pizza balls and baked them in traditional ovens, before eating them smothered with fresh tomato sauce.

With so much to see and do, the Eden Centre easily took up the better part of a day, making it an ideal location to visit while travelling around the south-western tip of England.

Managing to successfully combine entertainment with education, the Eden Centre proved that plants are not only useful for keeping the whole of humanity alive, but also for providing us with a great day out.