Winter Festival - Week One

This is the third year that Bathurst has celebrated our cold climate with a Winter Festival.

The festival covers the two weeks of school holidays and commenced with "Ignite the Night" last Saturday night.  There was a row of local food and beverage stalls with a great variety to tempt us all.

As with the previous years there is the skating rink, this time bigger and better.

And, of course, some major buildings are illuminated each night.

 

The little ones were entertained by the characters from Alice in Wonderland.

In addition to the ferris wheel, this year there is the double decker carousel, which is rather lovely and popular too, going by the length of the queue to have a ride.

If you wandered down a little lane you entered "The Enchanted Forest" in Machattie Park.  The expansion into the park was also new this year, and a great addition.  Doesn't the fountain look spectacular with its flamingos.

There was a lot of hype about Doughnut Times having the caravan attend and sell some sweet treats.  We queued for ages - quite social actually.

Eventually we received this rather attractive box.

Get a load of that - yummo!

Next on the agenda was a wander through the historic fernery, all beautifully lit up.  I bet many Bathurstians hadn't visited for years, if ever.  It is a hidden treasure.

By now things were starting to wind down, so we listened to a band for a while, had a nice cup of coffee and headed home, all by nine o'clock.  

A truly wonderful night, apparently attended by about 11,000 people, of all ages.  It was a lovely clear night, but freezing cold.  Just about perfect for this sort of event.