The Royal Hobart Show

 

October 24, 2007

 

Well, tomorrow is the Royal Hobart Show. It sounds like a US county fair. In fact, it sounds very much like the Champlain Valley Fair, which is held not far from us in Vermont every Labor Day week. There are rides, food stands, entertainment, animal showing and competitions for jams and best sheep, etc. Anyway, the Thursday of Show week is actually a holiday in southern Tasmania. The kids have school off and it’s a staff holiday at the university. In fact, the kids also have Friday off as a teacher-in-service day, or, as they say here in Australia, a “student-free day”. I find this very funny! It sounds like “gluten-free” or “additive-free”. It makes students sound like something you should avoid for your health.

 

Although we are very curious to go to the show, it sounds like everyone goes to the Royal Hobart Show once, then feels that they've done it. It's not at all like the Champlain Valley fair, which is like an institution, which everyone attends every year. Missing that would be kind of like saying "I just think I'll skip Halloween this year". Most people I talked to here had not been to the Royal Hobart Show in at least 10 years. Curious! Everyone loves having their Show day holiday, and people refer to Show week weather as a turning point in the spring weather, but most people don't go to the show! It just is. People did mention that we should see the wood chopping if we could, and Jenny particularly mentioned the sheep dog trials. It turns out the sheep dog trials are tomorrow, which is the one day we can go! I really want to see that, and so did Eileen. Actually Anna did too, but unfortunately, it starts at 8am... I don't know how long it continues, but we're going to try to get there then. Parking should also be easier. I just hope I can recognize the car in the lot! But I have Eileen with me – she can recognize the license plate number.

 

By the way, the wood chopping is considered a competitive sport – did I mention that the Aussies are crazy about sports? I quote from the little guide they hand out with the tickets: “It has been said that the sport we now know as woodchopping originated as the result of a bet between 2 men in a bar in Ulverstone, Tasmania in 1870”. I think that really says it all. It is a competitive sport, its origins involve a bar, and it requires serious strength. Woodchopping has everything it takes to be an Aussie favorite!

 

Can’t wait to see it! But it will have to wait until tomorrow.

 

Apparently there is traditionally terrible weather for Show week, but that is the turning point in the spring, and the fine weather starts immediately after. This week, the weather has been absolutely beautiful from Monday on, thus breaking with tradition. In fact, it’s SO traditional to have rain, that some of the ads even count on it! For example, there is an ad for Farmers Union that says: “It’s Show Week. What are the chances of rain…?????” Then it offers a free Farmers Union Poncho with every iced coffee purchase. Pretty funny!

 

October 25, 2007

 

Well, the morning did not start out auspiciously. Because the sheep dog trials started at 8am, and there was nothing in the brochure or on the web to suggest how long it continued, I woke up both girls at 6:40am, on their first day off of school. Usually Anna is woken up at 6 and Eileen wakes up on her own sometime between 6 and 6:45, but, not this morning… So, I had to wake two deeply asleep girls and convince them to hurry up and get ready because we were going to have fun!

 

We had a fairly quick breakfast and were all sunscreened and out of the house by 8:30am. Then I had to find the show and then find parking. Finding the show was not too difficult – I found it on the first try. Finding parking was a little more difficult. I finally chose a spot that raised money for charity. Basically, all the warehouses around there were using their parking lots for fair parking, so we just chose one and for $5 could park all day. Then back to the front entrance to go in.

 

Turns out there were a surprising number of people there at 8:30 in the morning! We wandered around and finally found the sheepdog trials. They were at one end of the main field, and there was ONE person watching. That’s all! There were a bunch of sheep waiting for their turn to be herded and two people manning that gate, and then there were a couple of guys standing at the other end with their dogs. There was one guy with a clipboard. That was it.

 

We watched for a little while (after fortifying ourselves with coffee and hot chocolate), but didn’t go right to the edge of the paddock, because they were setting up for motorcycle jumping between the paddock and the bleachers. But we could see fairly well. It’s really amazing how a good dog can guide the sheep around the 4 obstacles! The sheepdogs were mostly border collies. They crouch and stare at the sheep and run at them suddenly. They had three sheep to move through the course. The dogs had incredibly tight control over the sheep. Every so often someone would talk over the loudspeaker about the sheepdog trials, but mostly it was to announce other things happening at different points in the fairgrounds. At one point, though, they interviewed one of the organizers of the sheep dog trials. He said that a good dog can do the work of more than 10 men. Pretty impressive!

 

It was amazing to me that the sheepdog could keep the sheep in a group and guide them through this obstacle course while remaining at a distance.

 

It soon became clear that the sheepdog trials were going to be going on for a long time. In fact, they were certainly still going on at noon. So there had been no need for such an early start… So we wandered off to see what we could see in the part of the show that was like a carnival. The rides were drawing Eileen on...

 

Even at 9:30 in the morning, there were a surprising number of people there in the sideshow area (the carnival part of the show).

 

There were rides, of course, and the requisite carnival games.

 

While we were trying to decide what to do, we saw the Ferris wheel. Even though Anna didn’t want to go on any rides because of her cold, of course we all went on the Ferris wheel. That’s always something we do together, and it’s fun to do early on, because you can see the rest of the fair from there.

 

You can see everything from the top of the Ferris Wheel!

 

Annapurna at the top of the Ferris wheel.

 

Eileen with the mountains behind her.

 

And here we both are, because I should appear in the blog from time to time as well. (Photo courtesy of Anna).

 

While on the Ferris Wheel, Eileen decided that this should be her next ride. And it looked like so much fun that Annapurna decided to join her.

 

It was so much fun, they got right back on and rode it again! They both said it was the best ride ever!

 

Going up!!

 

And on to the Gee Whiz!

Eileen rode it by herself the first time.

 

The next time Anna rode with her.

 

Whizzing by!

 

We finally made it to the woodchopping competition. This was going on pretty much all day. We only stopped to watch a little of it. Two things stood out. First, the guys competing in this particular event were all pretty old. Second, they chopped those logs in half in a matter of moments. Wow!

 

We then stopped by an item in the entertainment listing that had caught our eye: Dancing with Ducks. It turned out to be sheepdogs who herded ducks. It was hysterically funny! But the show only lasted 10 minutes. The ducks were all decked out with pink or purple feather boas.

 

Here’s the first dog herding the ducks through a series of obstacles. The dogs responded to hand and voice commands from the trainer.

 

 

The second dog was even better. Both dogs took it pretty seriously!

 

We were pretty hungry by then and so we picked up a bite to eat at a vendor. The kids had dagwood dogs (corndogs), I had a beef kebab, we shared some chips (French fries!) and each had a lemonade (lemon soda). Not the most nutritious lunch, but decent fair food.

 

We then walked over the middle of the arena to watch the motorcycle jumping  team. We had watched them setting up earlier, but the first show was cancelled because of cross winds. They did some pretty cool jumps once they started! They started off with just jumping, then started doing tricks while they jumped. They looked like they were having a really good time. They also made it seem effortless.

 

Look, no hands!

 

Then Eileen and I went to watch the Racing Pigs, an event that we never miss at the Champlain Valley Fair. Having seen it so many times in Vermont, we felt that we ought to make a direct comparison from Australia to Vermont of this fine racing event. Oddly enough, it was almost EXACTLY like pig racing in Vermont! Even the patter was almost the same, except with an Aussie twist. They divided the crowd up into 4 sections, with each section cheering for a different pig, just like at home and had a cheerleader in each section, just like at home! The only difference was that the announcer had two adults in the audience make silly noises into the microphone: a pig snort and a pig call. They finished off the show with two amazing diving pigs!

 

Looks like red is in the lead by a length!

 

The other difference was that all these entertainment events (both the pigs and the ducks) lasted only 10 minutes, whereas these things usually last 30 minutes at the Champlain valley fair.

 

On our way back to meet Anna at the woodchopping (she felt she had seen enough pigracing in her life), we walked through a family fun area. Eileen HAD to stop to try out the stilts.

 

She actually got it going and walked a few steps!

 

Then a game of tug-of-war started up – boys versus girls. Eileen HAD to join in!

 

We met Anna, who was hot and tired, and thirsty from her cold. So we decided to get some ice creams and a bottle of water, then head home. We walked over to the ice cream stand and who should we meet but Mary and some of her large family! She was there with her two younger sisters and two of her older brothers. They were all buying ice cream too.  We all got ice creams and stayed around to chat for a while. Then Mary and her family walked home (they actually live in Glenorchy, where the Show was held) and we headed back to our car.

 

We had managed to avoid the expensive show bags, which are a feature of the Royal Hobart Show. Some people were walking around with lots of them. I think they each contain lots of products promoting various companies and each bag has a theme. People mentioned they were kind of expensive, and I didn’t want to be loaded down with bags of advertising that I had to pay for! So we skipped those entirely, and had a very fun time.

 

Then finally home, around 2pm…

 

Boy were we tired! And it had been hot and sunny all day, in defiance of all weather traditions! In fact, this was probably the first day we had had in Hobart that had been genuinely warm all day, with blazing sun. Lovely!

 

Then Eileen got a call to play from some friends and I had to get ready for our weekend away, because we were leaving the next morning. More on that in another posting!