2014 HENRY LAWSON FESTIVAL, GRENFELL - Part One

2014 Henry Lawson Festival @ Grenfell (Part 1)

The 2014 Henry Lawson Festival at Grenfell, N.S.W., Australia kicked off on the Friday before the Queen's Birthday Holiday weekend but didn't get into full swing until Saturday, 7th June. That was when I got amongst the action with my camera. Here's how the morning's activities looked:

The Moonlighters

There was a busking competition in operation and here's Pat Hazell (right) and his mate; they are known as The Moonlighters. They had a pretty sophisticated set-up for buskers, I must say! (They were outside the Criterion Hotel, so the blackboard in the background isn't relevant.)


There were lots of stalls along Main Street, with people from all over selling a variety of goods. I bought a beanie from a lady, who was from The Rock, which is south of Wagga Wagga! She and her husband have alpacas, so the beanie was made from alpaca wool. Very warm!


Right at the bottom of Main Street is Rygate Square, where there was lots happening. This mob had an interesting display of antique engines, mostly pumps:

The first item that caught my eye, was this red-and-green beauty, which, if I read the sign correctly, is owned by a chap from Greenethorpe. It's a 1925 Sundial and its working life was spent in the Walgett and Moree areas:

It was actually running, when I took the shot but, after taking it, I changed the settings in my camera and came up with this one, which gives a better indication of the machine in motion, For those, who like to know these things, I set the shutter speed to 1/30sec:

This next pump was stationary but the following four photos show some motion. I hope you find them interesting.

Wending my way back up Main Street (through the crowds!), I saw lots of smoke emanating from one stall. It was a pizza place that must have just fired up their oven - wood-fired, obviously!

Pizza vendor. The smoke had eased off by the time I got there....

Just one example of the many older buildings in Grenfell. 

Nice lace ironwork there and just across the street from that one is the former Exchange Hotel, which has had a substantial 'face-lift' on the outside and, I believe, is still undergoing much refurbishment inside:

Jan Parlett's Country Experience

To compare it with how it looked 4 years ago, click here


Further up Main Street, the crowds were attracted to the new sculpture of Henry Lawson on a park bench. No doubt lots of 'selfies' were taken. Crikey, I even took one myself, earlier in the week!

Henry's still smiling

No doubt some of the older buildings have seen crowds before, particularly when the gold rush was in full swing but, nowadays, it's mostly during the Henry Lawson Festival that there are crowds like this roaming Main Street...

The hordes

Ben Hall, bushranger, doing his bit.

There were children's rides set up in the street, too. These three shots show the most colourful one:

Teapot, cup and saucer.....or is it a coffee pot?

To finish off the morning, I watched some of the open-air display by a group of bird and animal trainers. [My apologies to you purists out there but I don't get out into the bush very often nowadays, to photograph the real thing.] This was in the park right across the street from where I live. Can't beat that!!

Part of the crowd awaiting the start of the show

Handler with my favourite bird, a Galah

One of my first attempts at B-I-F. This was taken with my 'basic' zoom lens.

Handler with a beautiful Barn Owl.

Several shots of the Barn Owl follow. It was fortunate that the handler was fairly close to me....

That was the end of the morning's proceedings on the Saturday of the 2014 Henry Lawson Festival. Part 2 will feature lots of images of the procession down Main Street in the afternoon.