I did hear about the Royal Queensland Show/Brisbane Show Day/Ekka last year, but I had no idea what it was. Honestly, I thought it was just a big farmers market. This year, I learned the truth.
Part of the reason for our decision to move to Australia, was to gain new experiences. We sure are getting plenty of those, and lately, the new experiences have unfortunately not been blog worthy and rather mundane, hence why it’s been a bit quiet here until mom arrived and we actually started doing things again.
After working a lot lately, just the thought of going to a place where tens of thousands of other people would also be at the same time, wasn’t too alluring to be completely honest. I’ve been tired, not gonna lie, but I really wanted to experience this almost 160 year old tradition. This tradition is so important that Ekka (Aussie short for Brisbane Exhibition by the way), was made a Public Holiday from the very start if I understood correctly. It has been going on for every year since the start except for the Spanish Flu in 1919, during WWII in 1942 and 2020-2021 due to COVID. It will also not be held 2032 as more major events will occur that year in Brisbane and Queensland.
What The Royal Queenslad Show basically is, is an opportunity for farmers around Queensland to enter their livestock into prize winning competitions. Thousands of animals are in the show: cows, sheep, goats, cats, dogs, fish, birds. And all of the winners are lined up for the Grand Parade. Even if the event is going for nine days or so, the Grand Parade was only on the actual day, 13 August this year, and on the last Saturday. I am so glad we didn’t accidently miss that, it was so amazing. Imagine thousands of animals parading through this big stadium, it looked chaotic, but they were all so well-behaved (except one cow who actually needed to leave just after entering). Even the fish were represented in the parade. The largest Angus bull was 1,350 kg. It was ridiculous. And then there were baby highland’s which were ridiculously cute.
Up until that point, the amount of people weren’t too bad. But once the day started to turn dark, it was just too much. You literally couldn’t see the ground ANYWHERE. 70,000 people attended that day. Three introverts who love animals were sooooo tired on the train back home after that.
There were lots of food stands, lots of rides, wood chopping competitions (that was exactly as bogan as it sounds), showbags with merch and candy at discounted prices. Didn’t get one. I probably should have. I saw lots of people walking around with dinosaur bags which looked cool. Duck races, snake safety education, decent food, plants, old steam engine trains. The Brisbane Showgrounds were packed with stuff.
But it was a fun day. I hate to admit that we didn’t try the strawberry sundaes, but to be completely honest, they didn’t look that appetizing. Probably won’t be back next year. At least not on the public holiday. I might take that day to recover or hang at the beach instead. Great to experience though. And I do love all type of animals!
Bemm 