Winterfest: Nobles, Knights and Jerky!

Winterfest is a medieval themed fair held in Richmond, about an hour northwest of Sydney Australia. It runs over two days, Saturday and Sunday, I went on the Sunday with my girlfriend, 2 cameras and a determination to get a decent photo or two. Turns out we took more than a couple and are still sorting through the 3 or so thousand. Credit to @tealeav3s for about half these photos and explaining the basics of lightroom to me.

But I digress. The festival was great, we saw Historical costumes, mock battles, HMB fights (historic medieval battle), jousting and a whole range of animals. Below are some of the pretty cool things we saw and some of my favourite photos.

So the first thing I did when I got there was to visit some friends of mine over at Australian Medieval Combat, or AMC. These are top blokes and for anyone in Australia considering or interested in getting involved in the sport, check them out. (I'm going to do a whole post about that later)

We got to see some group fights, some single fights with pole arm and even a fistfight in armour. No major injuries today which was good for all.

As you can see, the armour takes a real beating and without it the sport would be lethal. Overall, was a good start to the day and we revisited that corner a few times to watch the fights.

From here we decided to explore the place. We met a lovely jester on stilts.

Got to see a blacksmith in action.

Some very regal birds used in falconry.

And even a unicorn or two.

There was a load of other things too, from the Kangaroo Jerky and Australian themed Hot sauce I bought to Scottish Tablet (like crystallised caramel fudge, was delicious) and even a stall for Mead (I got free samples).

As the day went on we watched a few swordfights and hung around in general waiting for what is essentially the main event.

The Joust

This was really cool to watch, they had 3 riders, one who had picked up the hobby at the age of 60 and had earned the nickname The Anvil.

How cool is that.

There was only a few rounds of this as it was the second day, but it was still satisfying to see these guys in suits of armour ram into each other with lances.

Overall was a pretty good day and I would reccomend it if you live within the Sydney area at all, I'm definitely going back next year.