July - Winter Festival

This year is the ninth time that the Bathurst Winter Festival has taken place, having started in 2015 as part of the Bathurst Bicentenary celebrations.  We thought the novelty may be wearing off, after all these years, and now that so many other places are starting to have an event of one kind or another to make the most of winter.  However, I think ours may be one of the largest, running over the two weeks of the school holidays and continues to draw large crowds.

WEEK 1

The opening night was on the first Saturday in July. We made a bee line to Renzaglia Wines to get our annual mulled wine fix (forgot to take a photo) and then went for a general wander around.

Firstly, Machattie Park.

There is a lovely star arch at one entry to the park.

The fernery in the park has lights throughout.  Rather a different look to the traditional Victorian fernery that it normally is.

Let’s just go for a wander.

In the lane way from the park to Kings Parade there is a long brick wall which has been converted into a giant computer game.

Lots of people were playing, but we just enjoyed looking on.

As we continued on our wander around the Kings Parade precinct we took in the illumination of the courthouse, which has become a central feature of the event.

Then we enjoyed watching some ice skating.  The local paper advised that as of Monday, which still had nearly another week to go, 16,800 tickets to skate had been sold, with 40 per cent being sold to people living outside our local area.  That’s pretty good and a great draw card to the town.

The Ferris Wheel is always present and looks lovely all lit up at night.

This year the Anglican Cathedral was illuminated and the bell tower looked rather effective.

By then we were getting a bit peckish, so time to adjourn to a pub for dinner.  It was delicious.

WEEK 2

The second Saturday of the school holidays hosted another evening event.  This time “Brew and Bite”.  Sadly, the weather was rather miserable that day and there ended up being a tiny bit of rain, but it didn’t dampen the spirits.

This time Machattie Park was the main venue.  There was a large variety of food vendors as well as local brewers, vignerons and distillers selling their wares.  Once again, we made a bee line to Renzaglia wines for another mulled wine fix.  Yep, I forgot to take photos once again.

The band stand was the stage for various musical acts.  Not exactly the bands that would have been envisaged when the band stand was built, back in the day.

A couple of fire dancers were putting on quite a show.

Back over at Kings Parade, a  feature that has not been here since the original event is a mirror maze.  We went in with some friends had had a great walk around.  We worked out fairly early on which was an actual walkway and which was a mirror, but it did take us quite a while to finally find our way out.  Great fun.

When we went back outside, the breeze had picked up an it had started to drizzle.  The trees in front of the courthouse looked so good, swaying with the illuminations on them.

As we had seen most of the event the previous week, we decided to get some fish and chips and head home.

The evenings were great fun, once again.  The festival runs until Sunday, finishing off with a “Pet’s Day”.  I think it has been really successful and look forward to seeing what is on show next year.