Canterbury Show Day

From last month:

Last Friday was the beginning of another three-day weekend. It was Show Day, the Kiwi equivalent of the county fair. But this county is the District of Canterbury, by a good margin the largest on the more agrarian south island. The fair only runs three days, but the first two are sort of warm-ups, with the early competitions and school field trips. We joined the masses on Friday to visit the show.















The weather was beautiful, perfect. In good Christchurch fashion, the commute from driveway to car park was less than ten minutes, even with cars pouring in at the rate you would find at the state fair. We loaded the kids into the double-wide (stroller, that is; pram; trolley), each weighing a pound extra due to sunscreen, and headed in to meet the McKenzies and Lettinks inside.














The surprise of the event was the paucity of surprises. For the most part, the event was a proportionate version of the Texas state fair. Show animals were there, and people mingled among the barns, but it was a more commercial affair, with rides, restaurant booths, shows.


Among the surprises was the popularity of horse events. There were two arenas running simultaneously, one for youth events, another for the big people. Another difference was the increased variety of species showed. It makes sense that the fine wool and meat production species of sheep would be abundant, but the cattle breeds were also wider ranging than we would normally see. They didn't have the heat tolerant breeds that we would see in Texas, like the bezu breeds, but then why should they. Another difference, though not surprising, was the variety of foods. They had both the standard state fair affair, the we-can-fry-anything booths. Cotton candy (or "candy floss" as they call it here) was there, hamburgers and hot dogs were there. But they were not what you think; for that you would have to go to the AMERICAN hot dog stand, the one with the American flags on it. Otherwise your hot dog was a crispy fried corn dog! But they also had a good variety of ethnic foods-- Indian, Chinese, German. There were also vegetarian booths! Anyone see that in Dallas last month?


Mostly we milled around. Ryan learned about honey bees, as we see in the photo, including letting a male crawl on her hand and arm. Brave girl! The freestyle motocross show was scratched because of wind gusts, but I noticed that their bikes were not exactly tuned. Knobbies worn, a couple of years old. Maybe it was best that their show was reduced to a few power slides around the main show arena, where the horses had been jumping earlier. The tractor pull went as scheduled. There were the wood chopping competitions, tractor displays, and helicopter rides! We got together and ate on the grass and took some great photos, as you see here. Trey joined with Antoni to debate the latest tractor models while the rest of us spoke of simpler topics.


All in all, it was a great day. The walk back to the car took longer than the drive, so we still had the evening to prepare for Trey's first birthday party. But that calls for its own blog entry and photos.