The exhibition, entitled Sweet Addiction, takes visitors through the making of chocolate from the pollination of the cacao seeds by mosquitoes to the invention of the first chocolate bar in 1799. And at the end there is a chance to win a year’s worth of chocolate by guessing the number of Lindt balls displayed on a gigantic framed chocolate artwork! That’s a prize I definitely want to win.
The Calyx is a $17 million steel and glass cathedral for plants … a miniature Amazonian rainforest. Cacao trees, vanilla orchids, anthuriums, heucheras, palms and ferns thrive in the tropical humidity. The glasshouse features a living wall 51 metres long and six metres high, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Eighteen thousand individually potted plants are brilliantly orchestrated to create a kaleidoscope of colour and design, including a very contented looking cow … and chocolate mint.