6 February 2006

A Berry Good Show

On Saturday we visited the Berry Agricultural Show. To paraphrase the movie, "Charlotte's Web", "It was the best town show in the town!" Lana's parents and us all piled into the Wombus (the name we decided for our 12 seater van - a cross between a wombat and a bus) and travelled 1.5 hrs over the mountains to Berry.

Go Pig Go! Fun country entertainent at the Show

Lana, her mum and the children had entered various items in the pavilion exhibitions, as we had for the Bowral show. Lana, Ariel and Lana's mum did very well, and James and Peter also won prizes. I'll show off their exhibits in the next day or so. Other than the pavilion which showed arts and crafts, flowers and plants, huge pumpkins and photography, there were horse and livestock judging and entertainment. They even had some pig racing. The fellow with the tall hat put on a good show getting the crowd to cheer on the four pigs in coloured tops, racing to get back in the float trailer.

Fire safety for the children. "Can we go again?"

The Fire Brigade is always at these things, getting across the message of fire safety and bush fire prevention. We asked the men to show us how to correctly use a fire blanket and they also showed the children what to do if they caught on fire.
Stop, Drop, Cover and Roll.
Stop what you are doing, Drop to the ground, Cover your face and nose and Roll to smother the flames.
They also had a little house which they filled with smoke and had the children crawl through so they could remember that in case of smoke, stay low and crawl. Rose went through several times, running as it was exactly her right height.

Real men wear white. And sweat a lot.

We spent quite some time watching the Wood Cutting competitions. This group of guys were amazing to watch as they chopped and sawed through a variety of logs in very quick time. In one of the competitions, the handicap was counted in strokes. At One, the first guy started, and as each man's handicap was counted he started chopping. At 52 seconds (!) the last guy began and he just finished second by about two chops. It only took him about four huge swings of his axe to finish one side and start the next. The competition was very sportsmanlike. In this photo you can see the fellow exerting himself in the two man saw with the fellow in the middle - his opponent - urging him on to go faster!
We spent a long day finally returning home around midnight.

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