The Country Comes to the City

The Sydney Royal Easter show is in town and we decided to check it out. It's like a state fair comprising of carnival rides, livestock competitions and all sorts of shows. It's one of Australia's largest annual events and attracts over one million people each year to Sydney's Olympic Park.

My favorite parts of the day were: 1. Seeing all of the livestock- cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, etc.; 2. The lumberjack competition- yes, chopping wood!; and, 3. The freak sideshow.


Look at the little piglets feeding.



The rodeo calf round up



The lumberjack relay- serious skill and muscle! This was so much fun to watch.



This picture is a little dark, but this is the sword swallower from the side show.

On the Road Again

This past weekend was Easter and in Australia we get Good Friday and Easter Monday off as public holidays. (Yay for a 4 day long weekend!) So, Paul and I decided to take advantage of the time off and hit the open road. We drove from Sydney up the coast of NSW to Coffs Harbour- about a 7 hour drive. Coffs Harbour is a coastal resort town known for its banana plantations and is home to the best known Australian, man-made tourist attraction, The Big Banana. It's a total tourist trap and a bit ridiculous, but their banana smoothies are delish!





Probably the most fun we had on our trip was checking out the small country towns of Bellingen and Dorrigo. They have that charming, "main street" village feel. The streets are lined with general stores, cafes, and, quaint coffee shops. On the outskirt of the town of Dorrigo are the Dorrigo National Park's World Heritage rainforests. We hiked for two hours through the rainforest to some of these amazing waterfalls and outlooks.











Here are some pictures of us checking out the Coffs coast.

Calling All Footy Fans!

It's autumn and that means it's footy time! Australian Football, better known as the AFL, kicked off its season last night in Sydney at Olympic Stadium. In a rematch of last season's grand finals (the league playoffs) the Sydney Swans went head to head against the West Coast Tigers, but once again, came up one point short of a win.

This was our first AFL game so we weren't sure what to expect. We had awesome seats... or so we thought. We were in the very front row behind the goal posts, however, unlike the NFL where they hoist nets behind the posts to catch the balls, the Aussies are net free! From warm up to the end of the game, we had to watch and take cover from incoming balls. Paul even caught one of them, but, he had to throw it back. Two of the nearby fans got nailed pretty hard. One of the blokes practically got knocked out from the hit. It was almost like a scene from the movie, Fever Pitch, where Drew Barrymore gets hit in the head! Needless to say the net free goals made for an interesting night! Here are some pictures from the game: