After driving through near cyclonic rain conditions from Port Macquarie, 295 km, we finally arrived at the bird sale. Situated in a huge shed (industrial workshops) the birds were booked in, labelled the boxes, paid entry fees ($1 per bird + $2 per person), found a spare trestle table and set up the boxes ready to sell. The whole process from unloading the car and placing the boxes on the sale tables was very quick, 20 minutes at the most.
The wet weather had kept a lot of sellers away as could be seen with the huge amount of pre-booked name badges left on the entry table. Inside the tables were arranged in a way that the sellers could stand behind their birds,
, and not create a traffic jam or bottle neck situation, so to speak, in front of the tables. A luxury most bird sales can not possible achieve in the smaller halls/sheds available. As the sale began the initial onslaught of buyers or surge or buyers was very small. The cloudy overcast weather conditions had kept a lot of people away. This allowed myself to walk around during the sale freely and look at what was on offer elsewhere. I was amazed or bemused to see at least 6 over tables of birds belonged to my local bird club had traveled down to the sale. The clearance rate at the sale was average, referring to the finches, as most sellers left with some birds still in their boxes. Not enough buyers, weather
.
Life in Port Macquarie is the ultimate Aussie sea change lifestyle.
