Bellingen is about 70mins south and inland of Woolgoolga and is quite famous for being a bit ‘alternative’ and popular with tourists for it’s café, market & festival culture. The 118th annual Bellingen Agri-Cultural Show was the usual mixture of traditional ‘County show’ with prize farm animals, show-jumping, dog show plus tacky fairground rides. Watching little kids being dragged around by massive bulls is always funny and the characters with their whippets and pomeranians were straight out of "Best in Show".
The ‘horsey set’ are very different in Australia, even in the show ring they wear jeans and they certainly don’t have the snobby attitude that we suffer in the UK. The WoodChop competition was very exciting thanks to the complete lack of Health & Safety. The audience is ‘protected’ from the swinging axes and flying wood splinters by a rope and none of the competitors wore steel-capped boots or eye protection. In the ‘Underhand’ round, they stand on a log (in their sneakers/trainers) and then chop through it in the fastest time just inches from their toes!
The final round was the Tree Felling – where the axeman cuts notches and inserts his boards to ascend up the tree in a spiral fashion and from the top board, severs the block in half. This was won by a fourteen year old! (he's the one in the middle - they grow them big in Australia) 
