Go go go Royal Hobart Show

In Hobart and southern Tasmania, the fourth Thursday in October sees the annual public holiday that is declared for the Royal Hobart Show (Show day is also traditionally the day to plant your summer tomato crop, and other horticultural products). Being dutiful southern Tasmanians, Katie and I trooped out to the showgrounds at Elwick with Caroline, Rob, Bea and Eddie for a bit of a taste of the fair.

For me, it brought back a heap of memories of childhood visits to the Show with Mum, Dad and Brent. back then, when Tasmania still had passenger trains, they used to run specials from the city out to the Showgrounds. Now, there's no special buses, but they do run the normal suburban service every thirty minutes. Integrated and innovative public transport, that's what we're on about folks!

We went through the cattle and goat pavillions, as well as the "Life on the farm" pavilion, which was filled with lots of touchable livestock and was a hit with the kids. Incidentally, sponsored by John Gay and the friendly folk at Gunns.

Speaking of woodchips, Katie and I wandered down the side of the showgrounds, via the Tasmanian Devil conservation stand,

and through to the woodchopping arena, where we watched a couple of heats of the big men doing battle with vertical logs. It was a great sight, watching these blokes sink their axes into the hardwood, managing to get through in just over twenty seconds. And these guys were the veterans!

After the excitment of the chopping, we made our way over to Sideshow Alley, where Katie had the pleasure of sinking five ping pong balls down a rotating clown's gob to win a lovely pair of fluffy dice.

And we got some hot American donuts, from the van that has had the same tape recording blaring from its speakers for at least the last 35 years. See them being made (link to crappy recording I made with my phone)!

There's some more photos of our trip to Elwick on this album.

And a lot of woodchoppin' snaps here