The Royal Show 2009

Today we went to the Royal Show 2009! It started by dumping our car in the royal parking. We were not the first ones that day.

We walked in on the fun fair side.

On a day like this it's all about having your priorities straight. So I went to the Adelaide Famous Poffertjes immediately! The poffertjes lady had added little olie bollen to the menu which were absolutely delicious! Warm, not too dry but crispy on the outside and covered in powder sugar. Good stuff!

Then we went inside. There were flowers...

Gardens...

Bonsai trees...



Cakes...

Bread...

Toys (LEGO!!!!)...



But as with all things that were only about fun when they started, commerce has gotten a strong foot in the door and so you will also find ugly people selling even uglier clothes in their ugly shops. It was like Albert Kuijp and Kalverstraat combined. Awful.

There were also animals, like black and white cows...

And brown and white cows. I always wondered what happens with a cow when her udder is full. Apparently when it gets too full, milk production is halted. I was pleased to hear that because I've been worried about cow's udders getting painfully full for a while...

There were also old engines.

And sheep...

That produce wool of some sort.

I think certain readers that like to spin their own thread are getting very excited now. I took these photos especially for you, ladies :-)

There were also goats. These babies have short hair...

And these guys have long hair.

OOoohhhhh... aaaahhhhh....

(click to enlarge)
When we had seen everything we of course stopped by the Adelaide's Famous Poffertjes house again for a second round of goodness.

Then we walked back to the car. This guy was wearing an awesome suit. Love it.

After a short break at home during which i did all the paperwork to get my stuff shipped back to the Netherlands, we went to Henley beach.

The day was too beautiful to just let pass and i felt this urge to get in to the water.

It was fantastic but the water was very cold.

I went in with just my flippers.

Afterwards we had coffee and cake and God made a rainbow on my table to say eating all the bad stuff I did today was O K.

The Royal Adelaide Show 2008

The past 7 years I heard several people speak to me about "The Show".

- "It's a nice day out"
- "There are lots of cute animals"
- "They have poffertjes"
- "There are tons of interesting things to see"

But also:
- "It's too commercialised"
- "It's too busy"
- "It's boring"
- "There are too many kids"

Today it happened. I went to the Royal Adelaide Show. Karin dropped us off around noon and we returned home around 19:00.
I had a great day and saw lots of cool things. The weather was perfect. It was sunny, 20C and a clear, blue sky. Here are pictures and videos I took/made today. Sorry if this page took long to load.

Enjoy.

The entrance.

First things first, right? People have been telling me about this poffertjes stand for seven years, I just HAD to go there first.

Perfect conditions for a nice day out. Good weather, lots of happy people and fun things to see and do.

There were flowers...

and Bonsai trees...

and fresh produce...

and things in jars...

and cakes. This one is actually a first prize winner and I think we can all see why.

And there was a guy with a big hat...

checking out other hats.

Just as a side note. On this show, there are about a gazillion contests that people can enter. Prettiest flower, prettiest bonsai, best fruit, best cake and prettiest hat are just a few.

There are a few stages with fun performances. These guys call themselves the "Zimbabwe Brothers". They were fun to watch.

These beauties are called "Dagwood dogs". It's medicine for people with low cholesterol. I had never seen these before. If you're wondering what it is: It's deep fried battered sausage on a lollypop-like stick. It's nice and crispy and they dip it in tomato sauce.

Anyway, there are also cow-girls shaving cows...

and nice old buildings...

and jumping horses...

and old cars (Holdens in this case).

"Piggie love". Oink oink.

And then there was the grand parade of the show animals.

This Kozak from the Ukraine came to do a few tricks as well.

He was pretty good.

No Australian show without Australia's favourite entertainment: Noisy hotted up cars.

The last act was a motorcycle stunt-team. They were pretty good.

No accidents or anything, good stuff.

Not everybody was impressed all the time.

Munch munch munch.

There were also a lot of rides, some of them looking beautiful like this one.

Adelaide driving school.

I thought I had seen most rides by now but this one was totally new to me. It looks awesome. I reckon one can get pretty sick in it.

The sun was setting slowly by the time we left.

But before we left we had to have more poffertjes.

Gotcha! We actually were told where to find this poffertjes stand on Sundays. I think we're gonna see a lot more poffertjes from now on. Simply because they are so DAMN GOOD!

While making my blog I got a phone call from my mate Mic which was really cool. Especially since most of the time I could actually hear what he was saying ;-) Thanks for the call mic! Oh, and thanks to some magical force unknown to mankind the missing half of my blog returned after our chat!