We had a lovely Sunday out at the Easter Show, one of Sydney’s huge annual events. The show boasts that it brings the “Country to the City” and it’s hard to argue with that. We saw (and petted some of) lambs, sheep, alpacas, pigs, chooks, ducks, geese, cows, cattle, ponies, horses, and lots of greedy goats.
Jan (right) with alpaca.
We walked from home to the show at the Olympic Site and met Viv and Chris there. They’d come by train from Epping. First we went to see the cats, a very important part of the visit. The cats being judged at the time were Burmese kittens. They were taken out of their cages and handled by the judge, so we had a good look at them. There were some splendid creatures on show.
Then it was via some alpacas and lots of horses (dodging all the horse poo) to the Farmyard Nursery, which is: “an open-plan indoor paddock with over 800 free-range animals you can pat”. We bought a little cup of food and then were attacked by greedy goats wanting to gobble the lot. Fortunately they were mostly tiny and cute goats.
We watched a couple of sheepdogs in action then stopped for a bit of lunch before tackling the fashion pavilion and viewing the art and craft displays. The prizewinning jewellery exhibits were, we agreed, nowhere near as good as the jewellery that Vivienne creates.
Jan (left) petting piglets.
We saw some exciting woodchopping. There was a relay race which included underhand, standing block and cross-cut sawing (single and double-handed). But the highlight for us was the tree-felling, where the axeman has to cut a notch in the tree, put a board in the notch, climb onto the board and cut another notch higher up for the next board.
He cuts through half the tree trunk when he reaches the top. He then has to climb down and repeat the process on the other side to cut through the other half of the tree trunk. Amazing skill and strength on show in what looks like a really dangerous pastime!
