Ironfest

Ironfest has been an event held in Lithgow for many years, initially commenced as an arts event to celebrate the fact that Lithgow was the birthplace of steelmaking in Australia.  It grew to a huge event, celebrating many arts, crafts, jousting, Napoleonic wars reenactments, military displays and the most fun part being people attending in costume, ranging from medieval, military, steam punk to Star Wars. Overall it is just a good fun event.  It was last held in 2019.

This year, the event has recommenced, on the weekend after Anzac Day, on a slightly smaller scale, having no jousting or war reenactment.  It has also moved to a new home at “Foundations”  at the small town of Portland, near Lithgow.    This is a wonderful venue, being the former cement works, so has spectacular old industrial buildings.  This year there was one other major change.  Entry was free, whereas it had previously been rather expensive to visit.

We had a great day out, taking in all the sights and sounds.  It was a perfect autumn day, weather wise.  Let’s take a walk around.

Of course I am always drawn to anything textile related and there was a lady with some woollen items.

She asked me if I thought they were knitted or crocheted?  

It turns out it is neither.  The craft is, in fact, “Nalbinding”, which predates both knitting and crochet, with the earliest fragments found dating back to 6500BC.   It was interesting watching how it is done, using a needle and length of yarn and worked in the round.  The ends have to spliced as you go.  The resulting fabric will not unravel, as do the other crafts. 

After we finally decided we had seen enough, we visited the adjoining small museum.

 It is well set out with a nice collection.

Portland also features a large collection of reproduced advertising paintings on their buildings.

The town has been transformed over the past few years from a grimey industrial town into a vibrant place to visit.

We thought we would spend a couple of hours down there, but in the end spent all day.