GOINGS ON AT THE SHOWGROUND

26^th October, 2014

Whilst camped at the showgrounds in Canberra there have been lots of things going on around us.  On the northern side of the campground is the trotting track and every morning and afternoon we have the pleasure of watching the horses as they go through their paces.  On the first Saturday at the campground we were aroused from our slumber by car after car driving past the caravans.  After due investigation we discovered that every Saturday morning a Farmer’s Market is held on the eastern side of the campground and hundreds of Canberrians make a pilgrimage to the markets in search of plants, fresh fruit and vegetables.  Of course we took a stroll over to the markets and wandered around the stalls.

Lots of flowering plants

Nice juicy tomatoes

And picked straight from the tree ... apples!

Needless to say we arrived back at the van with a bag full of fruit and veggies.

There were two dog arenas near the farmers market and at different times while we were there some dog training seemed to be in progress with a variety of breeds taking part. On our second Sunday at the showgrounds we were having a well deserved lie in (well we thought we deserved it) when we were awakened by what sounded like a bunch of women laughing and talking.  Then we could hear people running past the caravan and we thought ‘What the …?’  Then it was quiet again so we settled back down for some more snoozing when it all started up again.  OK – enough is enough we thought, so up we got and had a look outside.  To our surprise groups of women swathed in lycra were walking and jogging past the caravan and seemed to be doing a fitness course that had been set up in the paddocks and areas surrounding the caravan park. 

Ladies in Lycra running past the caravan

They were all shapes and sizes and seemed to be having a great time.  We were amazed that banners and obstacles had seemingly appeared overnight.  The people erecting the stuff had been very quiet as we didn’t hear a thing.  We found someone who knew what was going on and were told that this event (Miss Muddy) was organized to raise money for women’s charities such as breast cancer etc. and over 5,000 women had registered to do the challenge.  Every fifteen minutes a new group of women started the course and this was to go on all day until about 4pm.  Well – we were wondering what we were going to do that day.  Wandering around watching the ‘girls’ do their stuff seemed to be a good way to spend a sleepy Sunday.

Another group starts the course

Leaving the hurdles and tyre challenge and off to the next obstacle

Three laps around this ring carrying weights

Across the balancing logs

And this is where the mud comes into the equation - crawling under the net

Climbing over the beams

Diving into the slide

Getting all soaped up and frothy

Time for a hose down

Waiting to climb up the giant blow up slippery dip

Coming down the other side

One last obstacle before the finish line - blow up sumo wrestlers

Crossing the finish line

 

There were lots of other obstacles scattered around the main arena and some of the girls opted to walk around the more difficult ones but all crawled and laughed their way through the mud course.  What a great event! 

On another day a semi trailer pulled this rocket into a storage area.  No-one seems to know anything about this one.

A camping and leisure show was held over the last weekend we stayed in Canberra and the good weather encouraged a large attendance.  There were vehicles coming and going all over the place and although we didn’t think we really needed to visit another camping show we decided to walk over to the main showground area and have a look.  The event was quite large with the caravans, campers, 4 Wheel Drives and accessories spread out around the outside of the main arena along with food stalls and stuff for patios.

Wandering around the outside displays

Pot belly stoves and pizza ovens

Cherry wine and jam - yummm

Trying out the 4 Wheel Drives on the X-Treme course

The showgrounds are very large with a number of outbuildings that can accommodate undercover displays.  There were all manner of stalls to meander through with cooking and fishing demonstrations going on at different times of the day.

Even reptiles had their own display - with one lizard happy to be out and about

Yep - if you are going to buy a jeep you will need a bigger boat!

Hmm - this is not what I had in mind
 

We never knew our home town of Newcastle had a pudding lady!

After a few hours we finally managed to tear ourselves away.  It was a great show with plenty of space between things – not all jammed up like most of these types of events.  And did we find anything to buy?  Of course we did.  Wok found two extendable annex roof supports that he had been procrastinating about buying.  The deal the annex guy offered him was too good to pass up and Wok installed them as soon as we got back to the van.

Well we certainly can’t say that it hasn’t been interesting here at the showgrounds.  The campground is basic with no bells and whistles but for entertainment value alone it was worth the price of admission.