Day out at the Ekka

Also known as the Brisbane Exhibition.  Originally an old school Exhibition/Fair run by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA for short) it was THE yearly Exhibition in the big city for cattle, horses, produce and the like.  All of these things still feature heavily at the Ekka along with the obvious appeal of Sideshow Alley – home to every lurid carnival ride you could imagine.  I haven’t actually made an Ekka pilgrimage for about 13 or 14 years since my teens with a group of school friends.  The most memorable thing about that visit was running into some other school friends who proceeded to hop on the Zipper and get vomited upon by some other punter who couldn’t hold their Dagwood dogs.  Actually the vomit sprayed out of the aforementioned Zipper and we came very close but just missed out on wearing half digested Ekka food.  I don’t remember what else happened that day. 

Knowing that I’m leaving the country for a while and that there are big changes afoot in the actual Exhibition grounds, it seemed like a good time to check it out again for old times sake.  Also I had family going, so I tagged along with them.  Overheard comment of the day – Man at old fashioned lemonade stand takes sip of newly produced drink, pulls a face and says to his son “It’s a bit lemony”.  Really?!? Lemony lemons…someone should put a stop to that.

Here are some pics I captured on the day.

Mooooo

Stand at the main show ring

Clowns will eat your soul

blurry rooster

I think they used ALL the colours

The one on the left is evil...

The big wheel

Sideshow Alley

sparkly tutued kewpie dolls

More Southbank images

I took more pictures of Southbank during my trip to Brisbane for the Game On exhibition.  Here’s a few of the other good ones.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about.

Surely every large city has one of these by now?

The wheel is right by the river, conveniently situated right near the tour bus drop off point.

Brisbane river with citycat and central library in view

I like being in cities with a river flowing through them (even if it is an interesting shade of brown).  The central library is the partly blue building hiding behind the bridge and flyovers.

The older Queensland Art Gallery

We also now have a Gallery of Modern Art nearby but I don’t have picture of that building yet.  This is the one I grew up visiting.  Some of the artworks are so familiar it can throw me off when they get moved (as galleries tend to do with their collections from time to time).

Protest over markets continue

Following on from my post over Easter about the changes afoot at the Green Flea market in West End, the protests over the change in management are ongoing, with other community organisations revealing they also had tenders knocked back.  The protest has made it’s way to City Hall, but Council are standing firm on their decision to appoint Blue Sky Events as new management for the markets.  ABC news has posted an article about the decision with interviews with market founder Peta Hackworth and some of the stallholders.

Turn left at the dead badger!

So in a lovely continuation of my excellent week (that started with V fest) I headed into Brisbane Wednesday night to see Bernard Black himself.  Dylan Moran is currently touring Australia and at the last minute I managed to scrape an almost but not quite back row seat at his all but sold out show at QPAC. 

Proof - that I sat in row X (I was tempted to go with I've got a golden ticket!)

It was a good night.  The show went for just under two hours (including interval) but he was hilarious at every point.  As dishevelled as you’d expect from the TV show and with a glass of wine nearby he covered topics like relationships, life,  booze, Brisbane and everything else in between in his own particular manner.

I say bring on the rest of this week – it’s going swimmingly so far.

Southbank images

Southbank, Brisbane that is.  I know the phrase Southbank conjures up idyllic pictures of Paris and the Seine, or maybe London and the Thames (yes the Thames can be scenic).  But no, I have pictures of Southbank, Brisbane.  It’s the best I can do for now.

These pictures were taken on a trip to Brisbane a weekend or two ago.  It was a beautiful sunny day (it was also quite hot too).  I couldn’t tell at the time which pictures would turn out because of all the glare, but some of them are ok.

This first one is of the bougainvillea archways at Southbank.  They provide a shady and colourful walkway through the gardens to markets.  Although you can’t see a lot of flowers in this picture, the bougainvilleas are a rich vibrant purple colour that look absolutely lovely when in flower.

The next one is another view of the bougainvilleas.  In this one you can see some more of the purple flowers.

This picture is of a sculpture near the State Library.  You can see the towers of the CBD in the background.

These are just a few of the pics I took on the day, I’ll post some more another time.

Details at the State Library

On the day I visited the Game On exhibition, I took some pictures of the State Library up close.  They’ve got some interesting art on the front of their building.

Notice those strange bug like creatures on the left hand side of the picture.  Here they are up close (where they look much cuter).

See how it’s looking right at you.  Here’s another.

I quite like them and their coppery sheen.  They do appear to be staring though, maybe they don’t like having their picture taken.