My feet are killing me

Creamed crocodile, penne pasta, or emu baguette, how does that sound?  Well, they are amongst the dishes you can enjoy at The Purple Goanna Cafe that I visited yesterday in Redfern.

I have decided to visit different places on foot, places that I don't know very well, and Redfern is one of them. The above photo is from the railway bridge. Redfern was named after William Redfern, a Canadian surgeon who came out to Australia. It is also home to a very mixed population and has previously had problems with drugs and crime and racial conflicts. Now it seems to have become  somewhat gentrified. I certainly felt completely safe walking around, but then it was broad daylight.

I certainly wouldn't mind one of these cute, old houses, with wrought iron fences.

There was this place, that I first passed once, but then on passing it a second time I just had to walk in and see what it was all about. It is a gift shop and a writer's studio for youngsters. They can get help to write their stories etc. In the gift shop they have all sorts of stuff "from Mars" and you can also get your Martian passport stamped!!!

As the title shows, it didn't do my possibly broken toe any good walking around all day, so today will be a quiet day at home. Stay tuned for more from our upcoming trip to Mudgee this weekend.

Sydney Royal Easter Show

Sounds quite impressive with the 'Royal' in there in the title, doesn't it,  and it was, even though I didn't see any Royals. There were lots of people of different nationalities, families, teenagers and seniors all having a great time, though.

It seemed equally popular to go and see the animals and the sheep shearing, as to see the cake-decoration competition, or the Elvis impersonator (he was great by the way), or the wine tasting (we had some lovely rosé from the Mudgee region). What I am saying is that there were people everywhere, but it is a spacious venue in Sydney Olympic Park so there was plenty of space. The walking almost killed me however, I wish I had had a pedometer to see how far we walked.

My absolute favorite event though was the wood chopping which according to the signs is a time-honored activity here in Australia and this particular competition is colloquially called the Wimbledon of Woodchopping!!

The men were mostly chopping with axes and the women did sawing. Here you can see one of the female contestants hard at it but I was actually looking at my favorite one further away.

In the final part that we looked at they had to lop off the top of a 3 metre high "tree", the tree-felling event. This was done by a special technique which meant that they had to insert bits of wood to stand on to be able to reach the highest bit. This event was won by a New Zealander (darn it!)  The only thing that worried me through the whole thing was that it would have been so easy for someone to let go of their ax and for it to fly into the audience. It didn't happen so all's well, but just imagine.