The High Line again

After the long flights from Sydney, I was in New York again.

My favourite city in the world.

I managed to get a bit of sleep, but the jet lag still meant that I woke up at about 5am.  I was staying at the old Jane Hotel in a historic, but tiny room.  The room had a bit of a musty smell to it, so rather than lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling, I decided to take advantage of my early rise and go for a run.  The Jane Hotel is close to the Hudson River and Chelsea Piers, which meant I could run on the runner track along the waters edge.  I set out into the early morning as the sun slowly rose.  The air was crisp and refreshing as I ran.  I wasn't alone either, as other early morning runners joined me to start their days. 

As I turned to start running back, I got an unexpectedly incredible sight.  Looking down south along the waters edge, I could see all the way down the length of Manhattan all the way to the gleaming new One World Trade Center.  It stood out imposingly over everything around it, shining like a lighthouse in the distance.

I got back to the hotel, had a shower and got changed.  The hotel really was quite beautiful, but anyone who does decide to stay there should know that it has a "cabin" like feel with very small rooms and shared bathrooms at the end of the corridor.  It reminded me a bit of boarding school or my university dorm, but maybe with more Wes Anderson-like styling.  Refreshed and awake (enough), I walked over to one of the most popular attractions in New York, the High Line.  This part of New York has won plaudits from all of the world and seems to have become a model for the world on how to rehabilitate disused industrial parts of a city.

I walking along the pathway and gardens which had been built up on this old raised railway line.  It really was as great as advertised.  It was this secluded spot through the middle of an intense city which gave all of the proximity to the bustle of the city, whilst still being removed from the crowds.

Walking along this raised platform also gave you an opportunity to look at a very different side of New York.  From the higher vantage point, you could see a lot of public art which you either wouldn't have previously seen, or would otherwise be seeing from a different angle.

I decided I would walk from one end to the other.  It was longer than I expected and I found myself at the northern end of the line which was still not entirely complete.  The pathway had been completed, but none of the finishes or the gardens themselves were properly installed yet.  The northern end also felt like it was surrounded but a slightly rougher area.  That would surely change with a bit of time.  Now that the High Line had been built, I couldn't imagine there being any bad areas surrounding it in the future.  Any residential areas nearby would almost certainly become highly desirable as a result.

The High Line was fantastic.  It was such a simple thing, but it brought so much extra life to an area that used to be fairly industrial.  It must have come at a great opportunity cost though.  I can only imagine the hungry developers who would have wanted to have turned the whole area into more apartments for sale.  This seems so much better.

Truly Paradise

I was incredibly glad that Manon had invited me to go to Hamilton Island.  The island was a unique paradise.  It was every bit the tropical paradise that I had always imagined as a child.

Growing up, my family wasn't very well off.  We weren't poor, but money was still tight.  The idea of international travel wasn't really something I ever considered.  In those days, the idea of international travel was one that was very much limited to the wealthy or as a "once in a lifetime" trip.  In fact, it was very common for people to have never traveled overseas at all or to only have the opportunity to travel overseas once after retirement.  People would often save up their entire lives for the opportunity to go overseas.  Times were very different then.  Flights were extremely expensive and there really wasn't the same variety of options which exist today.  Discount airlines weren't around and there weren't a plethora of websites available to help people get better prices.  Instead, most people would have simple holidays down the coast.  We would stay at holiday homes of friends or at short term rentals a few hours drive away.  Sometimes, we would visit friends and family in other cities and even that would often involve long drives.  I remember we once went to the Gold Coast for a holiday as part of a work conference my dad was attending.  The entire trip was booked through a travel agent and much of the information we had been provided was wrong.

In those days, a trip to Queensland, in particular to the Whitsunday Islands was a dream holiday.  I remember my mum would sometimes bring back travel brochures of the Great Barrier Reef and we would all think about whether it was possible for us to one day go and visit.  We looked at the pictures of the luxurious accommodation and the incredible beaches and dreamed.  That dream trip never happened for us, but times changed and we were able to have some great trips after we moved to Singapore.

Being on Hamilton Island felt like a throwback to those childhood days.  The place still looked very much like the photos I looked at when I was young.  Cheap global travel has left places like Hamilton Island a bit behind the curve and it no longer has the same luxury appeal that it had back when I was young.  There's been a lack of capital investment, so everything looks a bit dated and even retro.

It was still beautiful.  If anything, I felt like the older style meant that I was able to enjoy this place as I would have had I come when I was a kid.  It was still the tropical paradise that I dreamed that it would be sitting in the cold house in Melbourne with my family.  The sun was warm and the breeze was cool.  The beaches were wide and people everywhere laughed as they swam and paddled in the water.  I could have stayed there for weeks longer if I had the chance.  Being here felt like completing a puzzle, or finally finding something you had lost a long time ago.  I felt like that little kid again, looking at the pictures with my family.

Winter warmer

I've never really traveled much during winter in Australia.  Particularly during the school holidays, the flights become too expensive as families rush to warmer climates.  I generally just sit inside and mope about which probably isn't good for my mental health.  I definitely get a case of the SADs (seasonable affective disorder) at times so more sunlight is something I should probably seek out more.

Manon hadn't been in the apartment for a few weeks.  She was on break from her university studies and her mum had come to visit us.  Since they had the time, they decided to do a big tour around Australia.  It was quieter in the house without Manon which added to my boredom.  Before she left, Manon urged me to go with them (at least for part of their trip), but I didn't think I could with work and other commitments.  She didn't relent though and suggested I meet them in Hamilton Island when they reached there on their trip.  My initial inclination was to say no, as I didn't want to intrude on their trip, but Manon's mum was also insistent.  What was stopping me?  My lack of travel within Australia was getting strange as was the fact that I had actually seen a very small portion of the country.  The furthest north in Australia I had ever been was Brisbane!  What's more, Hamilton Island held a special childhood appeal to me.  This would be a trip to a Great Barrier Reef!  I agreed to go.

The trip to Hamilton Island was a bit more annoying than expected.  Heavy clouds meant that my flight couldn't land in Hamilton Island and instead we were diverted to Prosperine airport.  We then got shuttled to Airlie beach, and we were ferried over to Hamilton Island.  It had taken a lot longer than expected, but I still arrived.

The whole place felt like a throwback.  It felt like what I expected a perfect beach resort to be when I was a kid and it was still the 90s.  There decor, the designs and just the entire look of the place was still stuck in the past.  In a strange way, that was fine for me.  Everything was still clean and exceptionally well maintained.  In any event, it still felt like a tropical paradise.

As evening fell, the quiet of the island took over.  Sitting on the balcony of Manon and her mum's hotel suite, I felt the beautiful calm of being so far from work and the crowds.

We went for an early evening walk up to the top of a nearby hill to look out at the view.  There seemed to be a longer dusk here than normal, maybe because of the lack of any buildings to interfere with the light.  Who knows?  We went to sleep early.

The next day, we went out to the reef!  This was the reason for coming out to Hamilton Island.  Located within the Whitsunday Islands, it is the perfect embarkation point to explore surrounding reefs and waters.  Manon had arranged for us to go out to a floating platform for the day which included a huge range of activities and food.  It was all incredibly touristy, but also amazing.  Everyone was in a fantastic mood and it was infectious.  When everyone around you is happy, it's difficult not to become happy yourself.  We arrived at the platform and there was a huge amount of stuff to do and see.  We went snorkelling, scuba diving and swimming.  There were various underwater viewing rooms to look at the reef and the fish.  There was even a semi-submersible boat which had windows all along the sides which would take people out further into the reef for tours.

I had a great time.  I felt completely re-energised being in the warmth and the sunshine.  Being outside and in the water made me feel happy in a way I hadn't been for months.  As the day continued, I lay on the upper deck in the sun, chatting with Manon's mum.  Manon meanwhile had run off to do more scuba diving.  To the side of the platform, a family boarded a helicopter to go and have a look at the famous heart-shaped reef outcrop which seems to be in almost every marketing campaign for visiting Queensland.

When we sat on the ferry to head back to Hamilton Island, everyone was much quieter.  No one was sad or upset, but half of the passengers were asleep in their seats.  It was an exhausting day in the very best of ways.

Canberra in the winter

I'm really not used to the cold anymore.  Sydney has made me soft and weak with its good weather and temperate climate.

I was in Canberra visiting some friends and I could not believe how cold I was.  Standing outside, when the wind was blowing, I really didn't have any resistance to it at all.  The cold cut through my coat as though it wasn't there and sucked the life out of me.

My friend brought me to have a look at the new arboretum.  I never knew what an arboretum was until I arrived.  Apparently it's a tree museum or something like that.  Whatever it was, it was quite scenic.  Much of this area had been destroyed by the Canberra bushfires back in 2003.  I was lucky to have been away from Canberra during those fires, but I remember reading emails from friends who were dealing with the terror of the approaching fires.  It was nice to see that the area was now being used for something useful.

Ice in Sydney

Sydney never really gets that cold.  Winter is annoying because it gets incredibly wet and can rain for days on end, but it never gets cold enough to snow or anything like that.  Even a frosty morning isn't something I've seen in my time in Sydney.  Living in Canberra during the winters was always tough, it would regularly go below zero, but there would never be any noticeable amount of snow.  At the very least, nowhere close to enough for there to be any fun winter sports.  One of the few pleasures on the icy cold mornings was when there was a hard frost that hard settled overnight.  Walking through grass on those mornings, you could hear and feel the crunch of the ice under your foot.  If you walked past any puddles, you would also be able to crack the layer of ice that had formed on top.

In this mild wintered city, it was a surprise to see an outdoor skating rink.  It had been set up outside of St Mary's cathedral as well, which provided an almost European backdrop to what had been put together.

With Gabby and Manon driving me to do more as always, we all paid for some skates and jumped on the ice.  I struggled along, having not ice skated for at least ten years, but still had a great time.  Manon unsurprisingly was flying around the rink.  She's a snow bunny from the Alps, so all winter sports are second nature to her.  Gabby was more tentative as she made her way around slowly before moving towards the edges.

After being circled and lapped several times by Manon, we finished up and moved towards one of the nearby cafes which had been set up.  Keeping with the theme, I ordered cups of hot cider and gluwine for all of us.

Cliffs of Coogee

It took me a long time to find the cliffs of Coogee.  Years in fact.  The cliffs are actually not on any walking track and it takes a bit of searching to realise that you need to jump some fences to get out to where they are.

Once you find them, you realise that they are one of the best places in all of Sydney.  They give a near uninterrupted view up and down the coastline of Sydney.  The rocks on the cliffs themselves are also beautiful, and some intrepid artists have managed to climb out and decorate some parts with some graffiti art (of varying degrees of quality).

Getting out to the cliffs is itself not that dangerous, but once you are standing on the edge it's easy to appreciate why the area is made more publicly known.  There are too many ways you could foresee someone slipping and falling.  Added to that is rocky outcrops beneath the cliffs.  If anyone were to fall in, it's not clear how anyone would be able to get to them to rescue them.

Still, it's lovely standing out there and looking out at the ocean.  When there's a nice breeze coming in you almost feel like you're completely alone in Sydney, standing on the very edge of Australia.

Birthday and cheese

For Gabby's birthday, she wanted cheese.  Lots and lots of cheese.  As a Frenchwoman this seemed fair.

We decided that we would get her some fondue as the best way of celebrating.  Times in Sydney are changing as there seem to be more and more casual French restaurants opening these days.  It's been amazing seeing the change in Sydney's dining habits over the last few years.  There's an increasing sophistication and willingness to explore which has really helped to increase the variety of offerings available.  Only a few years ago, the only French places that were really ever available would have been the traditional fine dining places.

I bought Gabby a birthday cake from Lorraine's in the Ivy complex.  It was a light and crumbly hazelnut and cream cake that matched the richness of the cheese we had just eaten.

As we left, it started to rain hard.  We started to run for the bus and Maylis decided it was now the perfect time to start singing "La Vie en Rose" at the top of her voice.  

The Microsoft XP desktop picture

Having lived now in Sydney for a few years, I felt I now knew quite a bit about the city and some of its less famous features.  The city is beautiful, but it has a lot more to offer than the superficial views of the harbour and its beaches.  I think it's quite sad that most people, including many Sydney locals, never seem to get past that part of Sydney.  For them, Sydney is nothing more than that initial layer.

They're missing out on a lot.  Sydney is actually a city that has a deep multicultural base with people from around the world.  You can get incredible foods and experiences originating from around the world if you only leave the city and drive a little bit further into the suburbs.

Beyond that there are also some incredible sights to be seen.  One of my favourites would have to be Sydney Park.  This is a huge area of park lands and manicured grass that sits to the south of the city.  Every time I've been to visit, it's been relatively empty.  The car park always has space and you can walk around the whole area without being disturbed.  It rises up onto a hill which also gives an incredible view of the Sydney skyline from the southern side.

One afternoon, I took Manon and Gabby out to visit.  We had been eating at the nearby Grounds of Alexandria, when I thought that it would be nice for us to walk around the park as well.  Both of them loved the place.  The enormous open space and the lawns give you a sense of freedom.  You want to run and jump when you are out there.

Gabby made Manon and I walk out a bit because she wanted a picture.  She decided that everything looked a bit too much like the Microsoft XP desktop picture. 

Emus and wombats

I don't do much when I visit my parents in Newcastle.  I never lived there so I don't really know anyone there.  Instead, I treat my visits as a time to relax and decompress.  Not too far from my parent's house is Blackbutt Nature Reserve.  It's a nice place for families to take the kids to see some native wildlife.  I didn't have anything to do so I thought I would go have a look.

The reserve is a huge area, but there is small part of the reserve which has been designed as a wildlife habitat.  It's in this part that you can see some native animals.  When I was there, the wombats were out and about, shuffling around and making their loud grunting noises.  I've never seen a wombat in the wild, only in sanctuaries and other locations like this.  It's hard not to like wombats.  They always look fat and they waddle when they walk at their own pace.  They are definitely one of the funnier animals in Australia and they never seem hurried or scared.

On the other side of the reserve were some enclosures for emus.  These animals look terrifying and enormous up close.  Some of them looked to be limping a little bit, so this reserve must also be a rehabilitation centre for them.

We kept walking around and eventually spotted some green and shiny.  When we got closer, we realised it was an emu egg.  I'm not sure whether it was abandoned, or if that's just where the emu decided it wanted to keep its egg.

The whole reserve is a nice place for a couple of hours.  Living in Australia, you don't often actually see the animals that are so famous to so many around the world.  It's nice to get close to them once in a while.

Round and round

Ferris wheels seem to be experiencing a renaissance around the world.  It seems like you can't really be a global city unless you have a ferris wheel in the CBD to show all the visitors how great you are.

Normally I walk past these things without a second glance.  Having Manon and Gabby with me meant that we were going to try more things.  They both wanted to go for a ride to see the city and I was more than willing to have a look.

The view wasn't that great.  It just isn't high up enough and the location of the ferris wheel in Darling Harbour means that it's a bit too far away from the rest of the city.  There are better places to go with better views of the city.  Still it was fun to go up, though I'm not sure it would have been had Manon and Gabby not been there screaming as we made the turns.

Oh Vivid!

It was Gabby and Manon's first year in Australia, so they hadn't experienced Vivid yet.  I really love Vivid, I remember the first year it was held, when it was nothing more than a few exhibitions and some pretty lights being projected onto the Opera House.  It's come so far since then and I think it's probably now my favourite event in Sydney.  Martin Place in particular is lovely during the time of year as it fills with lights, colours and people.  This year, they had set up a set of drums for people to play with, and at 5pm sharp everyday, we could hear the "boom, boom, boom" from our office.

Winter in Sydney is normally quite boring.  I've often said that this is a city that is made for the summer.  When it's not summer, most of the city just goes into a hibernation as it waits for better weather to return.  Vivid changes that whole atmosphere as the whole city and fills it with colour and music.

We went for a long walk around the city to try and see as many of the displays as possible.  The festival organisers had even created an app which made it easy to locate all the different spots to visit.

Manon and Gabby loved it all.  It was easy to understand why with all of the incredible lights and displays around the city.  The interactive displays were particularly fun this year and we spent lots of time playing with the various lights which responded to our actions.

It sounds like a cliche, but Sydney does feel a bit more magical around this time of year.  You walk around the familiar places you see everyday and they come alive in front of you.  The moving images and colours seem to make the buildings appear to be living entities, with feelings and a soul.

It's incredible to think that Vivid has become so big and popular in such a short amount of time.  I'm all for it.  Winters don't seem as boring in Sydney with this incredible festival to look forward to.

So much football

When I was young, I always dreamed of moving back to Melbourne when I grew up.  One of the things I hope to do was to live in the city and to be able to go to as many Aussie Rules games as I could.  At one point, I looked into moving to Melbourne for university, but that never happened.  The dream of being able to spend every weekend going from game to game remained sadly out of reach and I had to content myself with the occasional game in Sydney.

One weekend, I found myself in Melbourne and I thought I'd try and experience a little bit of what I had always wanted to try.  I called up my friends John and Marty and we arranged to do the double header.  The timing was perfect, the first game had the John's team the Saints playing and the second game had my team the Hawks playing.

In the early afternoon, we met near Southern Cross Station.  From there we walked over to Docklands Stadium.  All of us were AFL or club members in some form, so we walked into game without any additional cost.  Membership also gave us great seats.  We were seated near the 50m line and were close to where the teams ran out.  Sadly for John, the game didn't go well and the Saints lost to the Eagles.

We left the game and saw a food truck.  The day was cold, so we bought some hot jam donuts to warm us up.  Standing there in the cold eating the hot donuts, I thought back to when I was young and at Waverley Park with my brother and dad.  Waverley always seemed to be freezing and my memory of the place was that the weather was never good!  We had a bit of time before the next game started, so we went to a parmy place that was a favourite of John's.  This seemed to be a true Melbourne experience now, football and parmys.

After dinner, we walked to the MCG.  My team the Hawks were playing the Swans.  It was an incredible coincidence that John and I had both been able to see our teams play on the same day.  Sadly for me, the Hawks also lost.  I still enjoyed the game though.

We had watched a lot of football, and both our teams had lost.  The day could have ended better, but I was still happy with how it had gone.  How often do you get to overindulge in something you enjoy so much?

Goodbye Dave

I remember first discovering the Late Show when I was at university.  I was a simple undergrad who was staying up late, trying to convince myself to study, but usually doing very little of that.  I often found myself sitting in bed, watching TV trying to fall asleep.  Late at night, even in Australia, the Late Show with David Letterman would play.

I started watching because I was bored and had nothing to do.  After a while, it became a part of my routine.  I loved Letterman's sense of humour and his brutally sarcastic wit.  He managed to do it all with such style as well.  When he sauntered onto stage, he would always be immaculately dressed as he buttoned up his suit before launching into his opening monologue.  His treatment of his guests was "generally" good, but there were still hints of his famed older and harsher approach to guests.  I would watch the opening monologue, his jokes and random segments, I'd watch the top ten and listen in to his interview.  After this, I'd normally switch off as I wouldn't have too much interest in the musical guest.

Letterman's time on the Late Show was finished now.  He was retiring and so his time on my screen would be coming to an end.  It was strange that Letterman was finishing up.  Seeing him walk onto stage for the last time sent a rush of nostalgia through me as I thought back to those days in my college dorm.

As he waved one last time and the camera panned away, it felt like the very last of my links to those university days were finally gone.

Super angry

The day started out well enough.

I had gone to watch a game of football with Leon.  The weather was good.  The skies were blue.  Living in Sydney, we were also revelling in one of those rare weekends where we actually got to see our team playing.  On top of that, the Hawks were playing the GWS Giants, who were terrible.  What could possibly go wrong with our lovely day out?

 It turns out quite a lot could go wrong.

It didn't take long before we began to worry.  The Giants had been regularly crushed all season.  They were awful.  It wasn't all that surprising given they were a new team.  Most of their players were still young and they were slowly finding their feet.

This game was different though.  From the very start of the game, the Giants seemed to have a determination about them.  They weren't being pushed off the ball and they definitely seemed to be much faster than the Hawks.  As the game went on, every attack by the Hawks received a successful response.  We all assumed that the Hawks would eventually push the Giants over, but every attempt was met successfully.

As the fourth quarter started, the Giants really started to push ahead.  They started to take a lead and nothing the Hawks did seemed to make a difference.

The Hawks were going to lose to the Giants...

We were seated in the Hawk members area, and Leon was not enjoying himself.  There were a few Essendon fans seated in the crowd who were having a great time at our expense.  This infuriated Leon and he let fly with abuse after the game was over.

The joys of being a football fan...

A night at that opera

Sarah loves the opera.  She asked me if I wanted to go watch an opera on the harbour with Lisa.  I had only ever been to the opera once years ago when I was backpacking in Austria.  I didn't enjoy it back then and I remember Chris and myself leaving after the first act.  There was a stuffiness to it all and following the story didn't help to make it more interesting.

It had been a long time though, and I admittedly enjoyed the "music" of opera, even if I didn't enjoy the performance of it so much.  On top of that, Sarah wanted to go to the open air opera which was held on Sydney harbour.  This seemed to be one of the great experiences of living in Sydney, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it.

On a nice warm evening, the three of us went out to the Botanic Gardens to watch the opera.  Most people were dressed casually, but there were some who decided to go very formal.  It added to the atmosphere and I was glad that for once, I wasn't one of the people dragging down the classiness of the place like I was back in Austria.

During my time in Sydney, I had spent almost no time in the Botanic Gardens.  It was always something that I intended on doing more, but just never got around to doing.  Being there at night was a bit surreal.  To be sitting there looking at the enormous stage, whilst having the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background didn't quite feel real.

Watching the show itself, I felt many of the same feelings that I did back in Austria return.  The music was lovely and I enjoyed it as much as I always did.  Sadly the whole package of opera is not something I enjoy all that much.  The acting was over the top and the sets, whilst impressive, didn't give me enough reason to stay interested.  There were subtitles displayed on screens for everyone so that we could follow the plot, and unsurprisingly the plot was ridiculous.  We were watching the opera "Aida".  A story about an Egyptian general fighting between his love for his country and Aida.  It all ends tragically (of course) and with pretty much everyone buried alive....

In our modern day of well written dramas and complex stories, I wonder whether it's simply the case that people in the past were a bit simpler in their tastes.  Would audiences in the past have found this silly story gripping and compelling or would they have seen this all as merely a "vessel" for the music, something to be tolerated for the true item of value?

Even without the story, it was good to be able to experience something different.  The music was indeed very enjoyable and I was able to look at Sydney is a very different light.

Taronga

One of the great benefits of working at my law firm are the free tickets to Taronga Zoo.  Years ago, the firm did some pro bono work for the zoo and in exchange, the zoo gifted the firm at set of lifetime gold passes.  The firm was nice enough to offer these passes to all of the staff and all we needed to do was book out the particular day we wanted to use them.  I'm never one to pass up the chance for a free trip to the zoo, so I decided to take Jimmy and Eva to the zoo with their family.

The trip over to Taronga is always one of the nicest in Sydney.  You can drive through the northern suburbs to get to the zoo, but personally I think a ride on the ferry across the harbour from Circular Quay is the best way to go.  Sydney is at its best when it is near the water, with its incredible beaches and beautiful harbour.  It's easy to forget about it sometimes, but these trips help to remind me of what is here.

The entrance to the zoo is at the top of the hill and away from the water.  Whichever way you arrive, you will head to this entrance at the top.  After you enter the zoo, you start to walk slowly into the zoo and down the hill until you see one of the best (and most confusing) views you can get all of Sydney. 

Seeing the whole of the Sydney skyline, with both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House from this angle is what most tourists dream of.  Not many people realise that it's actually from the zoo that you get this incredible view.  What makes it all so strange though is who actually makes up the foreground of many of these views.

One of the first big enclosures on your walk down the hill is for the giraffes.  They have pride of place in front of the amazing view.  So when you visit the zoo, you're more than likely to get your first glimpse of the beautiful harbour as you're looking at a large group of giraffes.  It's not the picture you would have had in your head of what Sydney harbour should look like!

The rest of the zoo is great as well.  There are plenty of shows where you can see the animals up close and there are even places where you can see them feeding.  It's not really a place I would regularly go to, yet a trip to the zoo never feels wasted.

Royal Show fun

The Royal Easter Show is an annual Sydney tradition.  There are Royal shows all over Australia every year, but the Sydney show always happens around the Easter period.

I love the show.  I've loved it since I was a kid.  People from overseas don't always understand it.  To be honest, I'm not sure I would understand it all that much if I didn't grow up with it.

It might be simpler than I think though.  City dwellers in Australia have a nostalgic view of the Australian bush and country.  The show gives us one of those rare opportunities to get a bit closer to the country and a different part of what Australia is.  It's a far cry from the original purpose of the show, being an opportunity for those living in country and rural areas to gather in the city to compete and to buy much needed supplies.

The closest comparison I can think of for the show is probably what Americans would call their "State Fairs".  Like the American state fairs, there's always a huge and varied amount of carnival style foods on offer.  Everything is in huge portions and frequently served on a stick.  It's kinda fun to gorge of this type of food once in a while and the show is the perfect time to do it.

From a food perspective, the more important place to go is the Country Women's Association cafe.  This is always set up inside one of the main halls and I definitely think it is the highlight of the show (from a food perspective anyway).  Every year, the old ladies with the CWA set up and start baking thousands and thousands of scones.  It's one of the great pleasures to be able to sit down for a cup of tea with some truly fantastic scones.

Of all the events, I think my favourite would be the woodchopping.  Going to the show means you also get to go to one of, if not the only, purpose built woodchopping arenas in the world.

Competitive woodchopping is a thing, and when you see it in person you appreciate incredible skill and power involved.  I think the event where they start building their own ladder up a log must the true highlight.  The show is a perfect event to bring overseas guests to.  You see enough weird and wonderful things that make up Australia and you can feed them.  It's the perfect combination.