We live in the happening city of Parramatta, which is a suburb of Sydney, and is Australia’s sixth largest central business district, (or downtown in American). I will admit that this town has all kinds of people in it, and if there is a festival, all of them will be sure to come out and check out what’s going on. The city council knows this, so they try to have a lot of different things planned to keep all their residents happy.
One such idea that they came up with is The Winterlight festival. According to the local newspaper, it’s a “16-day event that transforms Church Street Mall into a magical winter wonderland and features a giant outdoor ice rink and an impressive line-up of entertainment.” The paper also stated, “The event will feature a giant outdoor ice rink, vivid lighting and scenery, spectacular performances, food stalls, roving entertainment, live video gaming, outdoor movie screenings, workshops for kids and more!”
Well, who wouldn’t want to see all that? Seeing how we are in the dead of winter here in Sydney, (well, it is July after all), I decided that we should just go during the day so Gene wouldn’t have to hear me go Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr all the way home.
When we got to the open-air mall, I was quite surprised! Even though it was midweek, there were a ton of people there, and as usual, everyone was having a good time.
You could tell from blocks away that something big was going on.
They had the whole area all decked out in a winter theme, complete with ice rink and drip-less icicles.
From the photos I saw later in the paper, I must admit that we should have gone at night just to see the lights.
I had heard about a “Mesmerizing ice show by champion skaters from Australia’s premier troupe, Stars on Ice,” but I found out that they put their shows on only at night, under all the lights.
Since we were there in the daylight hours, we decided to check out all the booths that were there.
Nothing says winter like a fresh fruit and vegetable stand.
Yes, that’s an American Indian.
They had some booths that were like a cross between a garage sale and a flea market.
What kind of festival would this be without food booths!!! Yes, there is always room for food that is deep-fried. What was really neat about this section of booths was you had to cross over one of the bridges to get to them.
Here’s Gene with the two mini versions of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that you had to cross to get food. Besides being smaller, the only difference was there were no cars on them, or water under them.
All kinds of people were there. The over 40 group that expect people to believe they are still in their 20’s,
And the ones that thought this was a renaissance faire and the people who would humor them.
What would a festival be without music? There was very nice, soothing, live classical music,
And also rap, but for some reason, no one paid any attention to the rapper.
Australia is a free country, so if you pay for your booth, you too can set up and peddle your wears, no matter how stupid they are. This group had their booth right next to the rapper. (They got even less attention than the rapper)
After we walked around awhile, I decided to watch the skaters on the ice rink, because I figured this would be the best show in town. Seeing how Sydney temperatures usually don’t get down past 48°F on the coldest of days, most of the people trying to skate have only seen ice in their drinks. Being a novelty and the price of a 45-minute session on the ice included skate rental, there was a huge demand for this attraction.
The show was great! Everyone skated in slow motion, and no one knew what they were doing. It didn’t matter to anyone, because they were all having a great time!
One thing they did offer that I thought was a GREAT idea, were these little penguins to hold on to. You hold on to the handles, and push the penguin as you skate, and you got to keep your balance. Just look at the look on her face. Not only did kids use them, but also there were plenty of adults using these tuxedo clad helpers. Being from Detroit, and spending my childhood on skates, I have never seen anything like this. Absolutely brilliant!
Its things like this festival that make me very glad I moved to Parramatta (That, and Gene of course). Where else can you walk around with bright pink hair, dressed in chain mail and rental skates while crossing a mini version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as you push a penguin?
American Aussie 