Catching up on July – Bathurst Continues to Celebrate

I’m jumping all over the place here.  Remember I have been sharing about Bathurst’s 200th birthday, well the party continued in July.

One of the big plans was to celebrate and embrace Bathurst’s cold winter and boy, did they do it well.

The centrepiece was an ice skating rink in one of the parks in the centre of town.  It ran for 9 days during the second half of the school holidays.  The cost was $5 per person for a 45 minute session.  7000 tickets sold out very quickly.  $2 per ticket was then donated to the local cancer cottage.

Although most people had no idea how to skate, they all had the biggest smile on their faces. 

On the first night of the festival there was another big street party.  The opener was a display by some professional skaters.  They make it look so easy.

Once again the local foodies and winemakers treated us to their wares.

As a part of the winter’s theme “Frozen” was featured.  They had the move running with a heap of bean bags for people to sit in and a highlight for all the kids, and there were heaps of kids out and about, was Queen Elsa on her ice throne.

Elsa was played by a local lass who runs a princess party business.   It was a delight to see her interacting with all the little kids.  And yes, she is wearing very little and sitting on an ice throne with only a thin cushion.  I don’t know how she did it, but she was perfect.

One of the local high schools has a circus troupe who entertained us throughout the event.  This time it had more of a street performer style to it.

Here are a few more random photos of the evening and night.

Once again a feature of the party was the switching on of the next stage of “Illuminate”.  This time everything worked perfectly.

You may notice people in one of the above photos.  There was a silent disco in the Court forecourt.  How it worked was you collected a set of headphones.  There was a switch on the side which changed the LED colour from red, to green to blue, each colour playing different music. Only you could hear the music.  It must have looked rather strange to the onlookers.

Together with a group of friends we had a great time bopping along, even taking silly selfies.

It really was a fun night.  The weather played right and everything went off without a hitch.  Most of all, the community embraced it.  Apparently the local council is hoping to make this an annual event.  I hope they do, as it really could be a way to celebrate our wonderful part of the world.

By the way, by the end of the week the weather turned feral, with snow in the area.  However, it didn’t stop people from getting out and skating.  Imagine if they had been skating in the snow.  Now that would have been special.