I had nothing to do or go to but I did do essential grocery shopping on Easter Saturday. ( my fridge is still not functioning properly - the temperature shot up to 15 degrees when I opened it to check the fridge thermometer I placed in there since moving in - surprised I haven't had food poisoning)
On Easter Monday 22nd April 2019 I decided that I had to get up and go out but waa so lazy I only arrived in the city just before noon.
I did manage to catch the full Easter Parade which was meant to be between 10 am and 12 noon doing a complete loop around Hyde Park and did manage to take some pretty good photos of the parade heading back towards their mustering point. Probably doesn't make up for the St Patrick's Day parade I missed previously through The Rocks though.
Photos below
The rest of Monday afternoon will be spent at Bondi Junction. Trackwork again just as well we have the M40 bus!
Tuesday 23rd April 2019 - Last day of The Royal Easter Show @ Olympic Park which brings the country to the city together - such a hike to get out there but it is the last day and a last minute decision of mine to go this year. All Showlink tickets which cost $39 available from Woolworths had sold out. I visited my local Woolworths at Chatswood before ringing at least another 3 Woolworths to find out if they still had any Showlink tickets left - all of them completely sold out as well. I had to resort to booking a Showlink ticket online which cost me another $2.65 handling fee ie instead of costing me $39 it ended up costing me $41.65. If I had lined up to buy a ticket at the gate it would have cost me $43 and not included free public transport to and from the showgrounds. Showlink tickets purchased online or at Woolworths include return public transport to and from the show which is great as public transport to Olympic Park is quite expensive.
I have planned a list of things to see and do today - mainly to see The District Displays before they are dismantled and the produce sold off. I love to hang out inside The Woolworths Fresh Food Dome although there seems to be a budget cut this year. I plan to avoid the dogs cats horses cows and pigs this year but alpacas ducks chickens sheep and goats will be my focus on animals this year. Then there is Jurrasic World 2 Fallen Kingdom as well as the arts crafts fashion and more work related baking , cake decorating & sugar arts competitions to view. I have ear marked some show bags I may like to purchase - limiting it to 1 only this year as they are quite expensive and looking out for any special deals BUT I am not quite at the Olympic Park yet! It is now 9.36 am and I estimate I won't arrive at Olympic Park Station until after 11 am today.
Arrived at Central and ran to the Grand Concourse where the intercity trains depart. 2 minutes until the Olympic Park train departs therefore got onto the last carriage of the train. The train is a special events train - an express direct to Olympic Park Station with only 2 stops in between Redfern and Strathfield. By Redfern the train carriages are already 90% full. Uh oh I see clouds in the distance. By Strathfield the train is standing room only.
I reach Olympic Park Station around 10.30 am however it was a walk to the main entrance to the show. Not a big queue though yo buy a ticket at the gate which was a very different story from 4 pm that afternoon ( I left the show around 5.30 pm that afternoon just as it was beginning to get dark) that afternoon as hundreds of people lined up to buy a discounted twilight ticket to take advantage of the final hours of the last day of the show before it closed for 2019. The annual Royal Easter Show is on for a short period of only approximately 2 weeks. This year it was on from 12th April - 23rd April 2019 not always coinciding with the school holidays.
First stop after getting my paperless ticket on my phone scanned at the gate the Stationary Stockmen and 2 cute alpacas along with their young handlers and a makeshift shed. ( see photos attached below)
Next I headed straight to The Woolworths Fresh Food Dome which is where the district displays are located. The Dome is where there food and beverage sampling and all sorts of food and beverage products can be purchased including fresh oysters chocolates pies myself bars general honey and bee products wine spirits cheese melted ice creams and gelato pasta pizzas breads pastries etc .
First stop is always The District Displays made entirely of produce from each district where I took heaps of photos ( already uploaded onto Facebook). Next queue up to get free tastings on offer from the Woolworths stall. They must have had a budget cut this year - their workshop talks and demo area and stage was 4 times as large as their tasting stall this year with half a cucumber a mini frankfurt and mini banana smoothie only on offer this year. I was hungry as I had been up early this morning and had not had breakfast yet so any food samples were welcome. I had just sampled a piece of hot cross bun from a bread stall.
After the Woolworths sampling I did the laps of The Dome's food and beverage stalls before heading off to do the laps of the Home & Lifestyle Pavillion right next to The Dome. I was tempted to purchase a pie to eat from a bakery stall in The Dome for around $6 - $7 but did not have enough cash with me so held off until later in the afternoon to purchase a pie to eat. I had packed some fruit cheese and bread so snacked on that in the morning.
The Dome contained the same stalls as the previous year - the fresh oysters with their display of oysters at various stages of their life cycle, cheese melties which are usually $2 but due to inflation are now $3 - is it really worth it? They use the cheapest slices of no frills white bread from Coles with a slice of plastic cheese melted in between. At the end of the day to get rid of any loaves of unused white bread some of the cheese melted stalls around the show give them away to visitors passing by FREE! I remember getting a free loaf of bread one year but not this year. Not a huge fan of refined white bread or plastic cheese.
I spent quite a bit of time looking around the Home & Lifestyle Pavillion . Here you could find various government and semi government organisations and pick up some freebies. I started off by getting a free Darrel Lea nougat Easter egg from their stand ( I was curious about their hot cross bun eggs however when I returned to their stand later in the afternoon when I spotted them they had sold out completely of all eggs!). I kept walking around and the NBN stand was next spotted so typed in my address to see if the building I was living in was connected - the computer could not determine if it was so I picked up a free NBN show bag which contained a notebook a ruler a stress ball & a packet of blue & white Made in China jelly beans - what no pen??? Needing a pen I walked back to the Transport for NSW stand which was huge and grabbed a silver pen & a packet of mini colour pencils from them that the stand was giving away. Other things I saw in the Home & Lifestyle Pavillion were Service NSW Bupa, spas, ceramic frypans, stainless steel pots and pans, the CWA tea rooms area serving scones and tea, lots of kids activity stands such as the Bandaged Bear Hospital for Westmead Childrens Hospital and the Genes for Jeans stand. Then at the far end of the hall there was the Pet Pavillion - on display were not dogs and cats but frogs, lizards, snakes and birds.
Next onto my favourite halls just across the road ( I left the Show Bag Pavillion next door for the very end of the day) - the Arts and Crafts Pavillion , Fashion and Style Paillion and Flower an Garden Pavillion (cake decorating sugar art floral arrangements photography ceramics scones fruit cakes biscuits knitting crochet painting gardening sculptures jewellery textiles etc it was all here in these pavillions). My favourite is always the baking cake decorating and sugar art competition displays. I also spent time looking at the vegetable growing competition. Native floral arrangements are my favourites too.
Next onto some outdoor exhibitions - Jurassic World 2 Fallen Kingdom. This was near Little Hands On The Farm and The Paddock and was a display of numerous life sized moving dinosaurs complete with sound effects fenced in an enclosed space - a crowd pleaser guaranteed to scare naughty children.
In between I managed to catch the tail end of the Day Circus Street Parade - always a great parade to watch full of kids cartoon characters such as Paw Patrol Ninja Turtles etc. I did not stay for the Night Circus Street Parade which takes a different route around the showgrounds at 6 pm.
A quick look inside the World Bazaar tent then onto to see the animals via a quick stop at a full scale replica of a driverless train carriage at The Metroline display tent which I have already seen on display at several other events prior to this Easter Show - the driverless carriages are now probably 10 years old and will be obsolete by the time they start running live! Still no date as to when they will start operating.
I followed the Animal Walk trail and picked up a Junior Farm Hands Passport. Budget cuts again only 7 stamps to collect this year and instead of a booklet was just a piece of double sided printed A4 paper. It was certainly a lot easier to collect the stamps this year except the Horse Pavillion stamp. By the time I reached the booth they had already packed up for the day and it wasn't even 4 pm yet! So collecting 6/7 stamps was OK.
Horses in the horse marshalling area
Pony and donkey rides for kids
Goats & Pigs - is this a match for Molly the goat?
The only pies left for sale inside The Woolworths Food Farm - cheese burger pies at least they were freshly baked!
Dung nettle and cotton plant displays inside the Farm Of The Future tent.
The Day Circus Street Parade
Sheep In Paddocks & Junior Farm Hands
Junior District Displays
I followed the crowds into the Pig and Goat Pavillion - boring, through to the Poultry Pavillion where I avoided the hens although not the turkeys and just spent my time looking for Fluffy an Beaka the ducks as well as eggs and baby chickens and then the Sheep Pavillion through to the always cute Farmyard Nursery where there were lambs and goats roaming free trying to steal frightened kids' animal feed everywhere and where I was trying to find a male goat as a mate for Molly my manager's pet rescue goat. Next through to the Dairy Farmers Working Dairy via the Woolworths Food Farm where they were out of apple slinkies and substituting them with pear slinkies however there was plenty of juice left for purchase and where I had just enough loose change for a freshly made plain pie although the pie making factory had already closed for the show, only to find the only pies left were cheese burger pies that were a $2 special ( Is that actually a pie? I asked - yes it consisted of a rather chunky salty gamey sausage mystery meat mince that did not taste like beef, pickle, tomato sauce? and melted plastic orange cheese) which looked like a pie created from whatever they had left over. So hungry at this point in time I just scoffed it down before leaving the Woolworths Food Farm and onto the Farm Of The Future tent which was quite interesting and showcases the sciences behind farming including dung bettles and drones.
My first pet duck was uglier then this one
If Fluffy & Beaka were alive today this is what they would have looked like - just a typical pair of lovable Peking Ducks
Lucky to be able to photograph this beautiful turkey
This duck just wanted to escape
Specialty ducks on display
Next onto find the Heritage Pavillion but it was quite a walk around to get there so I stopped and watched a few horses in the horse marshalling area with their young riders practicing their dressage routines.
The Heritage Pavillion - this is where all the trophies are kept. Winners are presented a medal to keep.
A toilet stop enroute - no toliet paper oh dear - this is why you always carry some tissues in your bag!
After viewing the Heritage Pavillion - so this is where all the trophies are kept!!!!!
It was back to the Showbags Pavillion which was my 2nd final stop of the day before heading home. I was very disappointed that I missed out on an AG Show bag tbis year- they had completely sold out by Saturday. I buy this show bag every year to support the rural areas of Australia. I was advised that if I returned at 5 pm they were going to auction off the last 4 bags which will be put together from products left on display at the AG stand however no guarantees that I will get a Show bag for $20. Later I returned to the stand and the auction time had been crossed out to 5.20 pm now. The stand had plenty of bottles of soft drink left though for purchase.
Most of the adult show bags had sold out before the last day of the Easter Show but if you are a kid going to the Show on the last day which is also known as Kids Day and where entry for all kids is half price, there is no shortage of animals, rides and show bags.
I did manage to find the sold out Women's Weekly show bag for a bargain price of $10 after scouring the entire Show Bags Pavillion over and over again. I think they were throwing into this Woman's Weekly show bag anything and everything they wanted to give away by around 4.30 pm as it resembled nothing like the original products in the show bag. I think I happened to be there to purchase the show bag at its peak - it was so heavy - pity I missed out on the limited number of cherry patterned bags they released for sale after I purchased my show bag full of goodies which was a pale blue and grey striped one. I wanted to ask to swap the bag but decided not to after I saw what was now in the same show bag - the number of products had diminished since I purchased mine eg instead of 4 tubes of flavoured baking pastes there was only 1 tube and instead of 2 full sized packets of Lindt chocolate fruit balls which retail in the supermarkets at $5 a packet already were probably reduced back to a single packet per show bag making my show bag purchased break even just with the 2 packets of chocolate!
Happy with my limit of 1 show bag purchased I made a final stop back to the Woolworths Food Dome. It was now around 5 pm and all the District Displays were being dismantled and produce sold off to the public at bargain prices starting from 3 pm on the last day of the show.
I ended up using my loose change and purchased a whole pumpkin for $1. I wanted a whole pineapple as well but it was too heavy to carry home and I didn't quite have enough spare change for it. Professional last day Easter Show shoppers bring their own shopping trolleys and are more prepared with cash!
I have uploaded photos of the district displays and it's dismantling onto Facebook already.
Watch out for the pumpkins being thrown down below!
5.30 pm I am dead tired and it is time for me to head home by train train and bus unlike the hundreds of people queing up to enjoy the last few discounted twilight ticket hours of the last day of the Easter Show. I do not ask for a stamp to re enter the show.
Straight onto the next express train departing Olympic Station bound for Central Station via Strathfield & Redfern transferring onto a North shore train to Chatswood then a short bus ride home.
End of rather warm but enjoyable day - work for the next 2.5 days.
Photos below
Something for everyone at the Easter Show including die hard fans of The Game of Thrones.
Showbags Hall
Entrance to The Royal Easter Show
The cutest alpacas!
knitting & crochet
gardening plants, fruit, vegetables & floral displays
lest we forget - even an ANZAC Day tribute with crochet poppies
jewellery
The arts crafts photography cake decorating sugar art and baking competition displays
Products from the USA stand - an example of what may be available at World Bazzar
Farmyard Nursery - everyone's favourite, there were so many kids running around it was difficult to distinguish the lambs amongst the kids and whether there were more kids then kids roaming around!
The Dairy Farmers Working Dairy
The stationary stockmen
The crowds attractions & carnival alley
The makeshift shed where the 2 cute little alpacas with their handlers were
Life sized laminated displays of dinosaurs within the grounds of Jurassic Park
The District Displays before dismantling
Workers dismantling the District Displays & selling off produce to the public at bargain prices! Watch out for those $1 pumpkins being thrown down!
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