00:00It's the busiest time of the year for NSW oyster farmer Shane Buckley.
00:07The two weeks in the lead up to Christmas are just nuts, whatever you've got you can sell.
00:11And this summer he has plenty to sell, more than 3,000 a day, in what's shaping up as the industry's biggest festive season for years.
00:19I'm feeling very excited, we haven't had a good Christmas since 2017.
00:24Farmers say they've avoided the heavy falls that forced many of them to close for harvest in previous years.
00:30We have had the run of bushfires and COVID and floods, so yeah we really are looking forward to having a smooth run.
00:37So I'm hoping it's our biggest year yet, we've got plenty of fresh oysters that we're bringing in daily to harvest.
00:43Many oysters from other suppliers will end up here at the Sydney Fish Market, where the going rate is around $30 a dozen.
00:50We are expecting over 100,000 people to walk through our doors between 5am on the 23rd to 5pm on the 24th Christmas Eve.
00:58We're expecting to trade almost 70,000 dozen oysters during our 36 hour seafood marathon.
01:04Restaurants are also hoping for a steady supply.
01:07A lot of people come from Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne to experience the oysters.
01:12It's really important to have on the menu because the amount of people that do come for the oysters is actually pretty amazing.
01:19There's a sense of confidence amongst oyster farmers heading into Christmas, given seasonal conditions are in their prime.
01:25But they're keeping their fingers crossed in the hope that there's not too much more rain on the horizon.
01:30It's probably the first summer in I'd say seven years where it looks like everything's lining up.
01:36We're looking for the good times and this is what this year's going to be.
01:39And dozen to dozen oysters sound good.
01:41And there we go.
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