The greatest time of the year has come and gone again, and as always it was a source of much joy, loot, and another pin to add to the collection (cow this year!).
The highlight of this year was the human cannonball, who shoots out of a custom built cannon (apparently a family secret, all to do with the stability) at about 120km per hour, with experiences of up to 12g's. This man does this twice a day, 7 days straight; I am seriously impressed that he hasn't been compressed down to a tiny nub. I was also interested to learn that there's only about 14 people who do this in the world, and it seems to be a bit of a family business kind of thing (his dad was a cannonballer, and his son may have cannonball aspirations which in the world of AI may be a great idea). What a way to see the world!
Another highlight was patting a freshly shorn sheep and getting some free, warm, lanolin hand moisturiser directly from the sheep as a bonus! Win win, the sheep seemed to be having a grand old time.
One thing I'd never seen before is the pegging woodchopping event, which we made a point to see because of the highly suspicious name. I actually can't believe this is an event, and that no one hurt themselves. The competitors cut little tabs out of a big wooden pole then insert planks (I guess these are the pegs) that they then stand on to do the same thing all the way to the top. The planks they're standing on wobble all over the place as they chop, and they're not very long so one foot is precariously close to the edge at all times. One of the competitors was 80! Eighty!!! Outrageous.
The sheep dogs are always a highlight, they do such a good job and are just such good boys and girls.
We had a great time going as a big group of adults, which is such a fun way to go to the show! There's so many fun things to do, see, pat, eat, and drink. The best thing we bought was a great bottle of Tom's Surrender whiskey from Timboon distillery, but I think the best purchase was by Amy from the Christmas stall; a beautiful swirling snow scene in a cute lantern. We ate so many cool things like Bobby's stretchy cheese croc, Amy's tan tan wooooo, Kaylie's cake ball things, and Dermot snuck in a potato here and there. The wine at the members lounge is always a great addition to a greasy dinner over the fireworks, although we were bummed that the Wing Man wasn't doing chicken! The burger did look great though. A highlight of our visit was going on the Gravitron with a few from the crew who had never been on! They are now more than happy to never go on again. I'm pretty sure it's the exact same unit since when I was 6.
I had a great time with Andrew's parents, who always have a great insight into the agricultural parts of the show. They had an absolute blast, especially at the men's shed which I can't believe I've never shown them before.
The show makeup was a little subtle this year, since we had a concert to go to that same night (The Ezra Collective was bloody amazing, I got no photos or video because I was busy dancing my butt off!).
The best cake looked a little un-kid friendly to me, that cat might be going on a different kind of ride!
Although I love the show to bits, one big disappointment was that Nigel from Incredible Creatures wasn't there due to a controversial decision by the Royal Show to choose Landsdale farm animals instead. I go to see Nigel every year (especially if Rain is here too) and he is just the most lovely, kind, man who takes the time to show you something cool each year. I saw an outpouring of love and really personal stories of great interactions with Nigel on the places this news was announced, and I really hope they choose to bring him back next year. Completely unrelated, I also got in a bit of a puzzle mood.
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