CC&H Regional Display at
The Australian Springtime Flora Festival

Each year the region puts on a display of Alpacas at the Australian Springtime Flora Festival in Mount Penang near Gosford on the Central Coast. This display sometimes coincides with the Spring Show.

Convenor's Report - 7-10th September 2006

Set up for our four day Flora Festival display took place in perfect Spring weather. After Jill and I were happy with our creativity Wayne battened down the hatches ready for action on Thursday morning. The weather prediction for the weekend was of concern as we were expecting a cold, wet and windy change. At this time of year Mount Penang is notorious for windy weather so we were prepared for this. However, that afternoon a severe weather warning was given for the region. Overnight the site was deluged by rain and ferocious gale force winds. We arrived on Thursday morning expecting chaos. Luckily, our tent had survived and the display was intact and dry although a small river had run across the ground in the tent. We were extremely fortunate considering a number of other smaller tents had suffered damage including that of regional members Pat and Charlie. Madeleine and Peter Kinloch and the Brear’s had braved the conditions and arrived with alpacas and one of our spinners managed to wade in. The wind was still severe and the soft and soggy ground around the tent made entering difficult and a safety issue. With only a few members of the public braving the conditions we decided to close early.

Friday, Inti the Sun God smiled upon us and brought the sun and the return of Madeleine and her alpacas and also Evelyn Thrift. This was a busy day with much interest in the display. The ever popular ladies from the CWA Terrigal gave spinning and carding demonstrations. Optimistically, we thought the weather was improving just in time for the weekend. How wrong we were!!!

Saturday morning arrived with more rain. Narelle and Peter Tulip and Emma Griffith sailed in with their alpacas who were snuggled cosily into their pens of straw. As weekends are always busy at Flora Festival Jill and Brian Ross had volunteered to help together with Wayne and Ariana and my sister. Our Central Coast Spinning ladies were positioned on the highest and driest spot in the tent and just kept on spinning. As the morning wore on the torrential rain was not letting up. A river was running past the tent and the boys were digging trenches. As the mud was getting deeper Wayne and Brian, the ever resourceful engineers that they are, went on a skip-dipping venture and unearthed some left over flooring which they quickly relocated to our tent. This kept us afloat for the rest of the day and made it easier for the public to enjoy the alpacas.

Sunday’s weather was slightly better with intermittent showers. Martin and Carol Twynham brought along two females and their gorgeous crias who instantly won everyone’s hearts. Frances and Les Carleton arrived to help also. Lakehaven Spinners were represented today and even though we weren’t actually fighting off the hordes quite a few people had ventured out.

Although the weather conditions were far from perfect over the four day event Flora Festival remains a great place to introduce alpacas to the public and it is quite often here that people meet their first alpaca. Thank you again Jill for arranging the spinning ladies and many, many thanks to everyone who came with alpacas, to talk, to spin, to pick up and pack up – you made this another successful regional event.

Previous Years

Convenor's Report - 7-10th September 2006