Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th September 2018 - What I Did Over The Labour Day Long Weekend

People are reading this blog before I have even completed it! Please be patient I have a lot on.

Originally I was booked to go to the Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival on Saturday however the forecast kept changing and it looked as thought it was going to be an overcast and cold weekend with Saturday looking better then Sunday however this kept changing.

I was also going to work on the Saturday to fill in for one of my work collegues. In the end I gave my Saturday shift to one of my other work collegues ( there was a reason why I did this which I won't go into detail about and it had nothing to do with my planned Saturday trip to Bowral which I had changed to Sunday before offering to work on Saturday).

I had booked the very last bed in a 4 share female carriage at YHA Railway Square on Friday night for Saturday night. After looking at trip planner I didn't want to risk missing my train connection due to delays with the limited public transport running in the early hours of the morning  on Sunday to Central Station.

After checking in on Saturday afternoon, I did not make it to the Sydney Dance Company JFH dance class @ 2 pm therefore went to a  Latin Funk Workout class at 3 pm which is only an hour long. Never again - this was like a Zumba class on steroids. Every style of dance was taught in that one hour class. It was more like a high impact aerobic class then a dance class. I'll stick with Louie George's Beginner Jazz class or Ramon's  Jazz  Express class. My knees were sore from all the high impact moves and I was sweating like a pig! I also hate Latin.
Rating 6/10

Onto Broadway Shopping Centre for some snacks for tomorrow's train trip down to Bowral. But on the way I stop off to have a look at High Rollers Rooftop Roller Rink . So much promotion of this event until 30th September as part of The Sydney Fringe Festival , I just had to check it out.
Rating 5/10 So disappointed when I found this heavily promoted event, the rink was tiny - smaller then the ice skating that was present at Central Park for the silent disco ice skating festival (refer to my previous blog). I wanted to try it, being the ice skater but once I saw the roller skating rink - no thanks. Great idea for an underused roof top car park - yep it was empty but not quite what I expected therefore gave it a miss.

photos attached

Back to the hostel by bus for a hot shower change of clothes and repack. This time the dooner cover was missing off my top bunk - what item will be missing next time I stay there? No dinner just a snack and to bed after blogging.

Having a great sleep until the person below me's phone kept ring and beeping every 10 minutes starting at 3 am in the morning. She also snored!

A shower, change of clothes, a snack and fill my water bottle before boarding the fully booked XPT train on platform 6 to Canberra via Bowral. Most people are going down to Canberra to see Floriade but not me, I'm going to Bowral to see Tulip Time and The Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival.  Will be going down to Canberra next weekend though to see Floriade. Trust me not to be able to fit these events in until the closing weekends of both!

Photos of the garden I took look bigger then they are. Some of the flowers were a little rain and heat affected. 

So First stop was Corbett Gardens to see Tulip Time. The $12 entry fee was a shocker to me - save your money go to Floriade if you have the time. It wasn't really worth it. It is tiny compared to Floriade. If you want to see the tulips in Corbett Gardens come just before Tulip Time opens like I did last year when entry is free. Flowers should be starting to bloom already. Gates opened at 9 am. No trouble purchasing tickets at the gate. First free shuttle bus arrived outside Corbett Gardens just before 10 am to The Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival. I was going to walk to Bradman Park where The Food and Wine Festival is but just as I was about to, the first shuttle bus arrived so I hopped on. It was just down the road but the shuttle made it seem further.

The free shuttle bus between Corbett Gardens & Bradman Park.

Once I arrived at Bradman Park first stop photos, toliet stop, purchase of a $15 ticket & collection of a free branded unbreakable wine glass then a walk around - wine tasting, found a lovely cider out of all the wines and ciders tasted and available for purchase.

Time to sit down and enjoy the sunshine and live music on the main stage. By 11 am the crowd is building . Great atmosphere so far.

photos attached

My favourite photo I took of Tulip Time @ Corbett Gardens. I don't actually know the person in the photo but thought it would be fun to take a photo of her with the illusion that she is holding the large tulip sculpture in the background. It took a little effort to get the shot and I hope I did a pretty good job for a first timer!

Between 11.30 am and 12.30 pm Adam Liaw was on centre stage with a cooking demonstration - He was making a teriyaki steak. It was more a Q & A rather then a cooking demonstration. I did not stay for the entire hour but left to wonder around the stalls again.

Mucking around taking photos of the Badman statue

Adam Liaw Cooking on centre stage

All seats were filled during cooking demo

free unbreakable branded tasting glass included with admission price

view of centre stage from where I was sitting at a table  & chairs

The crowds were building of people attending and  the 360 dregrees photos I took of the stalls positioned around the entire Bradman Oval.

I ended up purchasing some juniper & duck salami, some bacon & peanut honey comb, some pickled orange and fennel and a bottle of Sunshack elderflower & feijoa cider to take back to Sydney with me. All products were sampled and carefully chosen before returning to be purchased.

Around 1 pm I left the Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival to board the next free shuttle bus back to Corbett Gardens. People were still arriving at the festival. By the time the shuttle bus reached Corbett Gardens, there was hardly any parking space for the shuttle bus to drop off passengers or pick them up.  The street was clogged up with large tourist buses illegally parked, cars and people.

Top photo queue at the ticket entrance of Corbett Gardens. Photo above woman at the very end of the queue around the corner and up the road past the CWA building. Estimated wait time to enter the gardens at 2 pm up to 60 minutes. There were information officers staggered throughout the queue asking if people were for Tulip Time or The Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival as this is the first year the Food & Wine Festival was at a different location in Bowral down the road instead of in the gardens.

Corbett Gardens had reached full capacity and the queue to purchase a ticket and enter to see the tulips was around the block! 

My plan for the day in Bowral worked without a glitch.

 - 7.05 am XPT Sydney Central to Bowral prebooked First Class direct service. 8.40 am arrive in Bowral and be one of the first people purchase a ticket to get into Corbett Gardens to see Tulip Time crowd and stress free as soon as it opened it's  gates at 9 am. Stay only for 15 - 30 minutes max to take a heap of photos.

- 9.45 am exit Corbett Gardens and either walk to Bradman Park or get on the very first shuttle bus. Using the shuttle bus which arrived @ around 9.45 am from Corbett Gardens to Bradman Park.

- 10 am the gates were just bout to open and stalls were still setting up. A small crowd of people slowly lined up to purchase tickets to get in to The Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival. Walked round all the stalls tasting several wines and ciders carefully selecting products to come back and buy towards the end of my visit to the event. Sat down a a table near the main stage and relaxed in the sunshine having a snck and drink listening to the live music.

- Then moved my seat closer to the stage to watch the cooking demonstration between 11.30 m and 12.30 pm. I gave my disposable tablecloth for a family to sit on as by now there were no more tables and chairs. I told them I no longer needed it and didn't  want to take it back to Sydney with me. Didn't  stay for entire cooking demo opting to look around once more. Last hour or so went around and made my final purchases before heading on the next free shuttle bus closest to 1 pm back to Corbett Gardens.

- By 1 pm Corbett Gardens was at full capacity and the queue to get in stretched all the way round pass the CWA building! Next stop Gumnut Patisserie to purchase some pastries (there was a long line for this too! About 20 to 30 minutes to purchase my chicken and leek pie and a salted carmel chocolate tart -  no customary cake purchase this visit they don't survive the train trip very well)  before hopping on the 2.26 pm  XPT train back to Sydney from Bowral Station.

The queues & the cakes @ Gumnut Patisserie Bowral

- By 2.00 pm the station platform was full (mainly of  cheapskate Asians) waiting for the change at Campbelltown Opal card $2.50 Sunday capped train back to Central.

- 2.26 pm and I board the XPT direct service prebooked first class car E back to Central.

- Around 4.25 pm back at Central Station. End of a very long day  - home by 5.30 pm.

Bowral Station crowded with people on their way back to Central with a change at Campbelltown

Monday Labour Day  Public holiday a rare almost do nothing day to sleep in and catch up on a few things. And no daylight savings this year during the long weekend! ( probably because of the footy both NRL & AFL - although not everyone is interested in football)

Central station Regional Trains  Concourse decorated with the grand final footy colour

Most of Sydney was either in Bowral , Canberra or the football!

This year's event I could not make it to this weekend Oz  Comic Con @ ICC Darling Harbour. Maybe next year if my schedule permits.

Ratings Tulip Time 6/10 save it for Floriade in Canberra only another hour or so away Southern Highlands Food & Wine Festival 8/10 will be back next year !