Hot air balloons draw tourists to Northam in winter
Hundreds woke up to foggy skies in the Avon Valley, 100 kilometres east of Perth, to admire the hot air balloons over three mornings, before 8,000 visitors flocked to see the balloons light up at night, in time to rock tunes, for the Elevate Festival.
A major drawcard of the Northam long weekend line-up was the inflation of the Skywhale and Skywhalepapa hot air balloons that were designed and made by Patricia Piccinini.
Piccinini's artworks are travelling around the country with Northam one of six national showings.
For a hot air balloon to take flight, on-ground wind speeds must not exceed 10 kilometres per hour, and the Avon Valley largely protects the area from such wind speeds.
Unfortunately, due to unfavourable weather conditions, Piccinini's balloons were unable to take flight over Northam, instead tethering and putting on a show from the ground.
Shire of Northam president Chris Antonio said the town's ability to embrace the cool conditions of the Avon Valley that were ideal for hot air ballooning, and turn them into a thriving tourist economy, was vital to the growth of the region.
"Leveraging our unique climate and tying it in with ballooning is more important than I probably even realised," he said.
"Traditionally in WA, tourism booms through the sunny months of the year, but we've been able to make tourism work in the peak of winter — that's our busiest time of year.
"We are able to position ourselves as the ballooning capital of Australia."
Mr Antonio said the town, which traditionally operated as a service town for smaller Wheatbelt communities, had previously struggled to establish a strong brand with tourists, but through hot air ballooning had become competitive with other tourism regions of the state.
"But when winter comes, we have the flowing Avon River and the hot air balloons.
"You can't do that in other places. That is our point of difference."
Speaking at the Wheatbelt Futures Forum in Northam in May, North Eastern Wheatbelt TRAVEL's Linda Vernon said there was limited data on tourism in the region as a whole, with more focus on areas such as the South West.
Despite limited data, she said there had been growth in visitor numbers to the Wheatbelt over the past decade that indicated an appetite for going inland.
"The tourism space in the Wheatbelt is still immature and emerging," she said.
Ms Vernon said feedback from tourists indicated that drawcards were niche events allowing visitors to connect with residents.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega attends Sydney event as major plot twist on hit Netflix series
Warning: Contains spoilers from Wednesday Season 2, Part 2 The stars of Netflix's hit series Wednesday descended on Sydney's Cockatoo Island on Thursday afternoon – and the overcast Sydney weather was a perfect backdrop for the event. Clad in her character's signature dark attire, titular star Jenna Ortega put on a haunting appearance alongside Emma Myers – who plays her cheerful best friend Enid Sinclair – as they attended an 'Outcast Assembly' on the famed island to promote Season 2 of the gothic series. Joining them at the event was the master of the macabre himself Tim Burton, who is the director and executive producer of the show. 'I love the character,' the Oscar nominee told the crowd about the iconic Wednesday Addams. 'I agree with everything she says, everything she feels a about family, school, psychiatry and society, so that's why we're here in this beautiful place. It's something I really identify with.' The trio are in Sydney for the final stop on the global Doom Tour, and are also joined by series creator/showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The group have visited England, Poland, Italy, France, Romania, the US, Canada and South Korea. But they left a major announcement for their last and final stop in Sydney. In dramatic scenes, actress Gwendoline Christie emerged from behind a giant moon suspended from the warehouse ceiling to reveal in a world-exclusive announcement that her character, Nevermore Academy headmistress Larissa Weems, will be brought back from the dead in Season 2. 'Did you really think Nevermore would let me go so easily,' her voice echoed in the warehouse. 'I was never gone. You just stopped looking.' Fans would know that Weems, a shapeshifter, was the former roommate of Wednesday's mum Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) when they were at school and would later become the principal of Nevermore Academy, where Wednesday and Enid attend. Weems was a major character on Season 2 and many fans were left shocked when she was tragically poisoned with a laced syringe by the deranged Laurel Gates, aka Marilyn Thornhill aka Christina Ricci. 'This season we'll see a different of Larissa Weems' suffering,' Christie later told the crowd, which was filled with superfans dressed in the purple Nevermore uniforms. 'It's such an honour,' Ortega said from the stage when asked about being back in black as Wednesday. 'Oftentimes you don't get to revisit your character, so to be able to do it with some like Wednesday. I feel very, very lucky.' Burton, Ortega and Myers will again take centre stage on Saturday at Cockatoo Island when the harbour attraction is transformed into Wednesday Island – a makeshift purple playground where fans lucky enough to secure tickets can walk through a gauntlet of haunting experiences, such The Raven's Passage and The Dead Lounge, while also taking a peek at The Doll House and Wednesday and Enid's Room. Season 2 sees Wednesday return to Nevermore Academy with her razor-sharp remarks and deadpan demeanour. Armed with her sharp detective skills, she soon finds herself obsessing over a new supernatural mystery that sees her get up to all sorts of kooky mayhem. Despite almost a three-year break between Seasons 1 and 2, Netflix numbers show that there was a zero per cent drop in viewership when Season 2: Part 1 premiered on August 6. According to Forbes, Wednesday got 50 million views in its first five days of streaming, which puts it on par with the Season 1 debut in November 2022. It's worth noting that Season 1 premiered with all eight episodes in one drop, whereas Season 2 premiered with only the first four episodes, with Part 2 premiering on Netflix on September 3. Therefore, expect another viewership spike next month.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Why do we need to boost productivity?
INGA TING, ABC DATA JOURNALIST: For those of us toiling five full days a week, the idea of a working four days a week – at 100 per cent of pay – sounds almost too good to be true. But at the upcoming economic roundtable, Australia's unions will cite research showing it not only boosts living standards, but also productivity. To understand how that might work, we first need to understand what productivity is, what it measures and what it doesn't. Put simply, productivity measures how much we output compared to how much we input. It's about quantity, not cost or profit. Today, the average Australian worker takes just one hour to produce the same amount produced over an entire day in 1901. That's thanks to a bunch of factors like economies of scale, higher skilled and educated workers, better management practices and - the single biggest factor historically – technology. A series of reports from the Productivity Commission have highlighted a long-standing productivity problem, showing Australians are working record-long hours and yet productivity growth is at its slowest in 60 years. And that trend is across most industrialised countries, not just Australia. So how does that work? Labour productivity typically measures the number of hours it takes to produce a good or service. This is fairly straightforward when you're looking at manufacturing or agriculture, and measuring, say, the number of cars or tonnes of wheat produced per worker. But it gets trickier when applied to sectors like care services, health or education, where the maths might tell you that bigger class sizes mean more productive teachers while the reality for students suggests the opposite. Bear in mind that nearly 90 per cent of Australians now work in the service industry, and we start to see how the way we typically measure productivity is starting to unravel. The picture gets muddier still, when we consider that labour isn't the only driver of productivity. Physical capital – like buildings, machines and equipment – as well as intangible capital like intellectual property, also have big impacts. This chart compares labour productivity to multifactor productivity, which measures the combined input from both labour and capital. It shows both types of productivity have been declining but capital productivity has lagged labour productivity for the best part of 30 years. The Productivity Commission has made the same point; that the added hours workers are putting in have not been matched by business investment in the systems and technologies that would allow workers to use those hours more efficiently. So, can we actually work less but produce more? The data suggests, yes especially if investments in better management and new technology are matched with less burnout, better staff retention and more motivated employees. Work smarter, not longer - that's the challenge for next week's roundtable.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Fellow critic remembers the life of David Stratton
Film critic, writer and educator David Stratton, who appeared on our screens alongside Margaret Pomeranz for decades reviewing movies, has died at the age of 85. CJ Johnson is a lecturer in cinema, President of the Film Critics Circle of Australia and a Golden Globes voter. He spoke with ABC NewsRadio's Laura Tchilinguirian about Mr Stratton's life and legacy.
