We drove over to the Botanic Gardens with the intent of walking the gardens, but Suzan's daughter Daniel was able to join us, so instead we went to the cafe for coffee, scones and a chat. We did a short walk to the center her company maintains, walked a little around the garden, then called it a day. Getting ready for the Easter Show.
Tuesday and it is Easter Show day. T
he Sydney Royal Easter Show is run by the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) of New South Wales (NSW). The RAS is a not-for-profit organisation that encourages the sustainable development of Australia’s agriculture. The show brings together animals and agriculture, vendors and competitors (crafts, cakes, etc.) and a fun atmosphere that is similar to a county fair or a smaller version of our Stock Show. The show occurs in Olympic Park and is outside the the stadium built for the 2000 Olympics (now ANZ Stadium - named after an Australian Bank) and also encompassed the Grand Stands which looked like they had been built for Equestrian Events. At the show the Grand Stands hosted not only equestrian events but also sheep and the dogs that herd them and today a wood chopping competition.
We went via train. Sydney's train system is quite nice and after about a 40 minute ride we arrived at the dedicated Easter Show Train that took us to the Olympic Park station. We entered the show to face a long row of stands with all kinds of vendors - candy, hand crafted items and what they call Show Bags.
The show bags used to be sample bags and were given away for free. Now they range in price from $5 to $25 and there is every imaginable type of bag for sale - candies, stuffed animals, Star Wars, Spider Man - if it has been sold somewhere in the world, represents a movie or a comic book or a kids show or book, it had a show bag. I watched families walk by with 5 or 10 show bags hanging from strollers.
We walked part way up until we could cut across to the kids area. This was a wonderful area designed to teach kids where things in the store come from. There were plastic carrots and potatoes buried in non organic dirt to be dug up. Cows to be milked, wool to be pulled, eggs to collect, strawberries to pick. Each child got a farmer's apron and a bucket and they were to work their way through the exhibit and collect their different items, then at the end they could sell what they had picked or dug up for a show money that they could then spend on a treat. The intent was to teach children where food came from, how farmers grow and harvest it then sell it to go into groceries stores. We had fun walking with the kids watching their adventures. We ended up at a pen of Alpacas that were just hanging out after a morning of being touched and petted by kids.
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| One of the kids filling his bucket with Dad's help (and Dad's permission to take and post the picture) |
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| Carrots and Potatoes buried for kids to dig up |
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| Suzan playing with a "carrot" |
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| Alpacas hanging out |
We moved on to the Woolworths' pavilion. Woolworths is big in Australia but it is comparable to Kroger in the states. They had all kinds of exhibits. Vendors that offered samples of their food, sauces and wine (loved the wine samples) with the hopes of selling you some of it. They had cotton candy and donut holes and roasted nuts and all the things you would expect at a carnival. Then they had a section that was just pure vendors. My favorite was the adjustable bed. While the young man tried to sell Suzan a new bed, I laid with my head and feet slightly elevated with a gentle massage that continued for his exhaustive sales pitch.
Woolworths had two cooking demonstrations. One was two "chefs" demonstrating to an audience theatre style. They asked trivia questions based on the demonstration and six winners got to come up to a table to taste the dishes while samples were created to be given to the audience. We happened to hit the salmon over sweet potatoes which was quite delicious - Suzan and I scored seconds. Yummy.
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| Food demonstration - Salmon and Sweet Potatoes |
The second demonstration was in a bistro setting. We got signed up for the second seating. The "chef" we later learned was an actor but he did pretty well. He made individual pizzas (pizza dough by Woolworths), a bread salad (all ingredients available at Woolworths) and finished with a dessert pancake with apple and pears (you guessed it, all available at Woolworths). We were all at tables of four and we got nice portions to try the dishes that magically appeared from the back. What was really cool was after the meal, they brought out one of the farmers who partners with Woolworths to bring their products directly to the store. They talked about their relationship with the company, how they grow their product and what it meant to farmers to partner with Woolworths. Woolworths also promotes sourcing as much as possible from Australia for Australia.
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| Our actor/chef for the second food demo |
At the end of the cooking demo with our "actor" he made a comment that we couldn't take him home. Of course I couldn't resist - "not even if we offer to take you back to the States?" He was adorable and we learned that he did have a part in Pirates of the Caribbean and was now on a show called Home Away (very popular in Australia) and he was hopeful it would help his career. Very nice young man, it was fun to hear his path to his career. While we were chatting. a young lady from marketing stopped to see if Suzan and I would record a session for their internal marketing. Of course we said yes so after a few questions - mostly for Suzan since she was Australian, we learned her name was Davina - only the second Davina I had ever met, so of course I told her about my good friend Davina (shout out to you Dee!) and she got a kick out of it.
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| Davina |
Finally there were a series of displays behind the cooking area that had represented what each area in Australia produces. It was really interesting, there were five of them and I had no idea all the different things Australia produced. Australia size wise is about the same size as the states, but the majority of the cities and population are on the coasts because the center of the country - the outback - is so dry. What I think is so interesting is that even though Australia is about the same size as the states, population wise it is about 24 million (2016 census). Less than 10% our population in a country the same size as ours.
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