Herding Ducks

We had an early start on Sunday morning so that we could attend the Brookfield Show in NW Brisbane. After driving only 15 minutes from our home, we found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful valley that felt far away from the Brisbane metro area. Here, next to the Brookfield State School, was a country-fair (an agricultural "show" in Australia) with all sorts of attractions for our 3-year-old and his two pre-school friends (who met us there with their parents) to enjoy. Our first stop was the sideshow alley, where the kids boarded three kiddie rides. I was relieved that this time Will didn't try to climb out while his ride was still moving. He did, however, try (unsuccessfully) to convince me to take him on the adult rides. And when I ordered a Diet Coke at the refreshment stand, he cheekily added to the order: "and a red lolly!" We later saw various water fowl in the poultry pavilion, a stuffed dingo, several snakes, a group of piglets taking a nap between races, a camel caravan that wandered among the crowds (seen in the picture on the right), and some beautiful border collies who demonstrated their herding skills on a trio of ducks in an obstacle course. Will and his friends also enjoyed the petting area, which seemed packed with mischievous children who cheerily pulled the tails of the baby animals. I think Will's favourite part of the show was the huge display of cakes, cookies, and brownies up for competition in the cookery pavilion. In his sweetest voice, he gently repeated, "please, Daddy, can I have that one?" We took a pass on the $50 'chopper' rides, which involved a dinky helicopter that looked like it was put together as a kit in someone's garage. Finally, we cheered the horses jumping obstacles in the Arena, although I really didn't understand what was happening in the competition.  By the time we left 3 hours later, Will and his friends (and their parents) were exhausted.

I really love 

these Australian agricultural shows. The granddaddy of them all, the EkkA, is just three months away... 

The Wednesday Holiday

As I mentioned in my previous post, today is a public holiday in "the Brisbane area." I'm not really sure how far this extends from my present location, which is in my office at UQ, but I am guessing that no more than 2 million people are affected. The purpose of this Wednesday holiday is supposedly to give local residents a chance to attend the Ekka, the big annual exhibition that runs for 10 days total. A relatively small proportion of the 2 million people who have this day off will actually attend Ekka today (I think the normal Ekka day attendance is in the tens of thousands), so I just don't get the logic of this Wednesday holiday. Why did they choose Wednesday in the first place, and why wasn't it Friday instead? If the concern is that giving a 3-day weekend to local residents would make it more likely that some of them would leave the area instead of going to Ekka, would it really end up being much lower than the figures for today's attendance? Certainly the costs to local businesses in giving everyone this day off, coupled with the loss of sales to those who are outside "the Brisbane area," far exceed the extra revenue generated by those who attend Ekka today anyway. Oh well. At least it gives me some extra time to catch up with my work. I wish I had a Wednesday public holiday every week.

Learning About Marriage and Chooks

Today was our second of what we hope will become annual trips to Ekka, the "state fair" of Queensland.  Ekka goes on for 10 or 12 days in the heart of Brisbane, and there is even a public holiday next Wednesday to encourage residents to go.  This was my third Ekka, my first occurring back in 2001 during an earlier trip to Brisbane.  I just love it.  If I could afford to miss work, I would come back a few times each year so that I could visit all the exhibits and watch the demonstrations.  With Will in tow, V. and I were able to manage about four hours today before it was time to take him home for a nap.  Some highlights this year:

• Will's first amusement park rides, involving boats, cars, planes, and trains.  It went fine until he tried to climb out of his moving boat so that he could go on the train ride.
  
• the pony competition (pictured above)
  
• the poultry and waterfowl exhibition, which featured some of the most beautiful roosters I have ever seen
  
• a 'horse whisperer' demonstration
  
• a greyhound competition
  
• Will's first showbag (see last year's 'Gone Whaling' post for an explanation): Thomas the Tank Engine
  

One other highlight was watching someone recite "Bush poetry" for a small crowd of mostly families.  A nice country bloke recited these poems without any notes, and both Will and I were spellbound as he spoke.  One poem was titled "Don't Get Married Girls." I was quite amused at some of the passages of this one.  Keep in mind that there were many kids in the audience, and more were filing in for a sheep shearing demonstration coming up next:

So don't get married, girls, men are all the same
They just use you when they need you, you'll do better on the game
Be a call girl, be a stripper, be a hostess, be a whore
But don't get married, girls, for marriage is a bore

I am certain if someone uttered these same lines in front of a group of children at the state fair in Georgia, there would be quite an outcry from concerned parents.  Instead, at the Brisbane Ekka, hearty chuckles filled the room.

Happy Exhibition Day!

August 15 is "People's Day" or Exhibition Day in Brisbane, a day set aside so that people can attend the Ekka. Ignoring the mid-week holiday, I went to work but found no one there and every shop on campus closed. A light rain was falling on students who were making their way to the ferry dressed like they were going to prom. I later learned that they were going to a special race day at Eagle Farm. People in their 20s going to watch a horse race in their nicest clothes...you just don't see that where I come from!

Still no word on our container's journey at the port. We have now gone more than a month eating our dinner on beanbags.

Gone Whaling

I have been a very bad blogger this month. I’m sorry. Prepping new lectures for the courses that I’m co-teaching has taken more time than I thought, primarily because I’m covering the material more deeply than before. Getting home each night, I have been trying to be a good dad and husband until my loved ones fall asleep, and I have slowly put together several shelving units that we bought from Ikea a few weeks ago. We still don’t have any of our things yet…the container ship should have arrived last Thursday, so we’re just waiting for ours to clear customs, which can take 5-15 days.

Our weekends have been very full. The pictures here are from our whale watching trip on Aug 5 with the Clarks. We went on a great cruise put on by the Australia Zoo, which was Steve Irwin’s home. It was a bit surreal on the way out of Mooloolaba to watch videos of Steve from the last series he was working on--called something like “The Ocean’s Deadliest Creatures.” Unfortunately, the sea was choppy that day, and a lot of people were filling up the vomit bags that were readily available. Although we never saw a whale breach the water, we did see several pods of humpbacks during our four hour cruise. Will had a mostly good time, although he was more excited by the water spray than anything else. His mother fared more poorly, but was still happy we went.

This past weekend we went to the Ekka, a sort of state fair for Queensland. It goes on for 9 days, and has a huge mix of livestock competitions, exhibits, scary rides, and “Aussie” food. We tried a Dagwood dog, which I think is just a corndog, downed some “old style” ginger beer, munched fresh strawberries, and licked an ice cream cone together. We took a brief walk through the showbag pavilion. This must be uniquely Australian. Many companies (e.g., Cadbury’s, magazine publishers) throw together bags of goodies from their company and sell them in all sorts of combinations that cost between $2 and $20 at gigantic booths, with hundred of people moving like cattle from booth to booth. V. also watched a sheep shearing demonstration while I was soothing Will after he got some sunblock lotion in his eyes. I really would have liked to watch the butcher show--in which several cuts of meat were to be lectured about--but we had to cut our trip short due to our son’s next fastly approaching crash.

Thanks for being patient with my blogging. And I do plan to reward you with some new pictures very soon. Late last week I received a copy of the new iLife, which has some great features for posting photos on the web. I hope to have it mastered soon, complete with a new way to view our photos…