Ekka

Last week was Ekka week here in Queensland. Australians like to shorten their words and from the official original name of 'Brisbane Exhibition' came Ekka. It's current official name is Royal Queensland Show, but EVERYONE calls it the Ekka and all advertising, including the official advertising, names it the Ekka. To compare it to something I recognize, it's pretty close to a state fair. But bigger - and I've been to some of the big state fairs (hello, we saw the world's largest hog and the world's second largest hog at the Indiana state fair!). The first Ekka was 131 years ago and out of 20,000 people in Brisbane that year they had an attendance of 17,000.

Exhibits included fashion, animals, food, produce, cars, cakes, wine, cheese, you name it you saw it. Plenty of freebies and of course fair food. The specialties at the Ekka are dagwood dogs - think corndogs dipped in extra batter and dunked in ketchup - and strawberry sundaes. This time of year is strawberry season around here and they are flavorful and plentiful. The sundae is actually a cone filled with strawberries, then super creamy ice cream and strawberry ice cream topped off with a giant strawberry.

We toured some of the animal barns, and I think the whole while FFM thought we were nuts. He's had a great time at the various zoos we've gone to, but apparently your standard farm animals aren't his cup of tea. Mostly he looked at us with a sleepy bored expression along the lines of, OK, so why are we here?

After the sheep, the petting zoo with every imaginable baby animal, and the stop to see the baby chicks (which elicited a mild reaction) he finally got excited about the donkeys. The donkeys of all things! Ooohs and ahhhs and kicking and flapping, donkeys were the fan favorite for our kid.

First ferris wheel ride, very popular. Even though it's a terrible picture.

Playing games at Sideshow alley. Drop the ball in the clown's mouth, hit some number, win a prize. OR be a blond baby and throw the balls all over the place, smile a lot at the ladies working the booth and get two prizes.

The only fairs I've been to have been midwest or western state fairs. I have never seen fruit dioramas before. See the apple 'quilt' on the right, on the left are the champion bananas.

Close up of the winning bunch of bananas. We aren't savvy enough to know what makes a champion bunch of bananas but they sure did look good (although obviously not ripe yet).

From the pineapple growers...this was about 1/3 of their display, I had the old camera so no wide angle lens.

And from the Citrus Capital of Queensland, the orange display...

Some got really elaborate, this one had parts that lit up and a whole scene with a tiny tent and walking paths. Other had moving parts (like an emu and a kangaroo) made of beans, nuts, grains, etc.