Farmers travel thousands of kilometres despite high fuel prices

Farmers have travelled thousands of kilometres and spent hundreds of dollars in fuel to attend the Sydney Royal Easter Show – but they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Despite the nation facing record-high fuel prices, the annual show has served as a much-needed reprieve for many farmers, including cattle farmer Geoff Payne.

Payne, who has been involved in the show for almost 20 years, said the trip was worth it for the exposure the show provides – and the community. “[The farmers] look out for each other”.

Still, he said the cost of a two-and-a-half-hour journey from Hunter Valley with 11 cattle has hit him the hardest this year. Unlike many of the other farmers, Payne was lucky enough to fill up on fuel before prices started to skyrocket, but he’s concerned about how much it will cost him to get home and the ongoing costs of managing a farm.

“It’s sort of doubled in price,” he said. “The way things are done nowadays … I mean, we don’t use horse and plough any more, we use tractor and plough. There’s a lot of people to feed.”

The price of diesel has risen more than a dollar in NSW since the war started in Iran. The NSW and federal governments are encouraging people to continue to enjoy their Easter holiday plans amid concerns the nationwide high fuel prices will discourage tourism.

Fellow cattle farmer Charlotte Stevens and her 12-year-old daughter Elsie drove for eight hours from northern Victoria to compete at the show for the first time on Friday.

“It wasn’t probably a great experience. We didn’t actually have trouble getting fuel on the way, but it was right up there, price-wise,” she said.

“Did it factor into whether we wouldn’t come or not? Probably not, given it’s a family thing that we do and it’s the time that we have together, but it has definitely impacted the overall cost of our trip to the show.”

The Sydney Royal Easter Show had a tumultuous day one on Thursday, when the show’s digital app, the Fun Pass, went down, preventing many attendees from accessing prepaid credits for rides. An event spokesperson has since confirmed people can secure a refund for unused credits, but will have to wait until April 14 to receive the funds.

Digital wallets will be deleted a month later and will not carry over to next year’s show.

Elsewhere in the city, the NSW government predicted the Sydney Fish Market would have its biggest day of trade since opening this year. Retailers opened at 5am to manage an expected crowd of 60,000, but the market was relatively subdued on Friday morning.