Gismo Queen and her King

Day 43 - Alice Springs

A lovely relaxing morning lounging over coffee and tea and waiting for the sun to warm this place up!

Then we headed out to the Alice Springs Show. It's not quite in the same league as the Royal Melbourne Show, probably more like the Whittlesea Show! But it was fun. We walked through the pavilions, smelled the food stalls, Greg had a dagwood dog for morning tea (he says I need educating in show food etiquette - I left that one to him) and then we walked around to the animals. We arrived at the cattle in time for the bull sale, which was quite interesting. Greg seemed to think we could bring a young bull home in the caravan - I didn't think so.

Greg was asking me to describe the average attendee - around at the animals they were very much like him (he was dressed to the nines in RM Williams - Lisa described him as a rich pastoralist!) but in Sideshow Alley they were more of the First Australian locals. Two very different demographics in two very different parts of the show.

We enjoyed a Famous Alice Springs Scouts Steak Sandwich for lunch - it was pretty good. By this stage the sun was lovely and warm and even with hats on, I was getting sunburnt. Harrison and Kobi made for the rides in Sideshow Alley and we followed them for a while before I wanted a coffee and a hot jam donut (see, I can do "Show" food!!). We then did our showbag shopping and headed back to the caravan for a rest.

After a rest in the sun out the front of our caravan, I headed off to do the grocery shopping while Greg listened to a book. I also needed to visit a liquor store and was worried about all the rules. BWS next to Woollies was open, but I read about takeaway limits so when Lisa arrived, I said she needed to come with me in case there were quotas. At the front of every liquor store in this town, at least one police officer questions people going into the store about how much they are going to buy. Having said that, it is mostly the local people who get asked. But, being an innocent tourist, I asked the policeman how much wine I was allowed to buy - his response "you can buy the whole store if you want". He hadn't seen my bank balance so I suspect it had more to do with the colour of my skin.

I was on dinner duty so I whipped up a creamy chicken pasta and put the shopping away. Just before I served dinner, the fireworks show from the Show came on. Our caravan park is only about 1km away from the Showgrounds so we were treated to the full display. Paul joked that their display was so good because they cashed in on the "stocktake sale" after Territory Day earlier in the week!! It was worthwhile anyway.

posted by Tracey @ 9:20 pm