A right royal Easter Show

 Sydney's big Easter Show is here again, and yep, there's something for everyone. Unless you can't stand crowds. I went on a Wednesday this time, and it wasn't that crowded.

It's Australia's biggest agricultural event, according to the Daily Telegraph. I'm sure that will be disputed by the good folk of Waroona, Gunnedah and elsewhere, but I'll go with it. There are prize animals, prize arts, crafts, cakes, giant pumpkins galore.












There are woodchopping competitions, extremely good collections of paintings and photographs, and amazing displays of farm produce.

Even a flower-arranging competition.

There's an enormous equestrian arena, in odd corners of which horsey people were doing  horsey things that I didn't quite get the gist of. I was impressed by the chessboard patterns on some of the backsides though (horses' backsides, that is). This one was new to me.













Newly shorn sheep, fresh from the shearing demonstrations.






 

A massive fun fair, with lots of scary rides, and presumably scary ghost houses.






             

       And more giant pumpkins!

Museum of Sydney

I've long had a soft spot for  the Museum of Sydney, although it's very small, and doesn't have a great deal of stuff in it.



It's a pleasant space though, and does a good job of telling you a bit about the history of the city in the hour or so that you devote to it.






There's usually a special exhibition on, like the Lloyd Rees black & white drawings of early twentieth century Sydney that I encountered today.



The Museum of Sydney is at the junction of Phillip and Bridge Streets, on the site of the first Government House, a model of which is perched above some of the relics unearthed from the site.









One new (to me) permanent addition is the room devoted to the local aboriginal clans, and the unfortunate history of their early interactions with the British settlers.



I've always been most taken though, with the scale models of the First Fleet ships - usually all 11 of them, though one seemed to have gone missing today. Until I first set eyes on this, I'd somehow had much less of an idea of what Governor Phillip's amazing expedition half way across the world had been all about. And remember, they all had to stay within sight of each other!

Skinks hijinks

They were common garden skinks, but when I first set eyes on them, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at. They were doing what comes naturally, and they probably do it quite commonly, but I somehow hadn't come across it before.

They didn't like the attention though, and suddenly they dashed off in opposite directions.

Donkey Mountain

If there's a God(dess) of bushwalking, then that would explain Donkey Mountain. (S)he built it to reward deserving NSW bushwalkers with their ultimate adventure playground.

It's a magnificent place. Well worth the three hour drive from Sydney. It's part of the Gardens of Stone National Park, and you access it from the Wolgan Valley Road, a few kilometres before Newnes. It's surrounded by land owned by the luxury $2000 per night Emirates resort, and among the entertainments on offer there are occasional bushwalks up Donkey Mountain. But you can do it for free.

It's a bit of a slog going up, with a climb of a few hundred metres. Once you're there on top, what a wonderland! An amazing collection of canyons, slots, ledges, 'rooms', 'windows' over the valleys either side, pagodas, caves. It's all there.


It's all been mapped and named by bushwalker extraordinaire Geoff Fox, of the Bush Club. I haven't yet met Geoff,  but I'll be eternally grateful to him for the work he's done mapping, promoting, and urging protection for this and other parts of Gardens of Stone. There's a visitor book up there that he maintains, and one rather ungrateful contributor had been very critical of him for encouraging visitors to this magical place, in case they spoil it. Everyone else left very appreciative comments. I understand that his mission is to encourage interest in the area, so that political pressure can build up to maintain its protection, and counter the pressure from nearby coalmines and other destructive forces. So if there is indeed a God(dess) of bushwalking, then maybe Geoff is her/his earthly representative? I read that he's already known as the 'King of Donkey Mountain', after all.



One of the slots we all squeezed through is named 'Jenny Craig'. We all made it, though I was slightly challenged.





The 'Grand Hall' is indeed a very grand space. This was our lunch place.










And the Titanic! Here's the prow of the doomed liner, with bits of iceberg either side of it!

Looking down on the Emirates resort.






   Tarzan, climbing up out of the 'Green Room'?

























* Photo credit: F. Moxom

Bondi to Coogee coastal walk

There's a nice easy six kilometre walk that links several of the best known beaches in the land. It's the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk, and I re-acquainted myself with it yesterday.

I tend to do the annual pilgrimage to the 'Sculptures by the Sea' exhibition every October. The walk from Bondi to Tamarama is very slow then, with the teeming hordes of sculpture watchers. Yesterday was much more relaxed.

Bondi Beach

Bondi Icebergs Club

Tamarama Beach. Closed yesterday, like many others, due to the wild surf resulting from Fiji's Cyclone Winston - the southern hemisphere's most powerful on record, it's been called.

Bronte Beach, 'birthplace of surf lifesaving clubs'.

Those photogenic Sydney sandstone cliffs

Waverley Cemetery, home to a few famous historical figures,including poet Henry Lawson. They've built a bypass recently, to divert the majority of coastal walkers along the cliff top at the front.

Clovelly Beach,  sand at one end, but Depression era flat concrete sunbaking decks either side.

Boardwalk above Gordons Bay

Gordons Bay

Approaching Coogee Beach you pass the shrine to the Virgin Mary, at the site of all the miraculous sightings of her on sunny afternoons since 2003.

Coogee Beach



   
 Looking north to Bronte, Tamarama, and Bondi