It's Show Time!

A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Brisbane Exhibition or Ekka for short.
The Ekka is a true "Country Comes to Town" experience as competitors from all around Queensland and New South Wales battle it out for the coveted Blue Ribbon.

I was lucky enough to spend two nights and three days at this years show and got to see a lot of the Ekka, I brought along the trusty Nikon and snapped over 3000 images over the three days (this led to a lot of processing time, and I don't think my laptop has forgiven me yet!). Here is just a snapshot of the event:

Every morning arriving nice and early to Roma Street Station:

 An Ekka Tradition for Breakfast:

 Scones with Cream and Jam made by the lovely QCWA Ladies with the Courier Mails in the John MacDonald Stand

Off Visiting the Beef & Dairy Pavillions:

Corporate sponsorship played a great role this year in the beef pavillion with McDonalds providing keynote messages throughout the pavillions allowing consumers to be educated on just where their produce comes from. So too did the Dairy industry with their encouragement of consumers to buy branded milk as oposed to home brand due to the impacts that it is having on our Dairy producers.

It was wonderful to see so many taking the time to walk through both these areas gaining an education on where their produce comes from.

A little bit of Horsepower.....

 This year at the Ekka the Hilux Heroes Precision Driving team presented their fantastic "Unbreakable Hilux" demonstrations, putting these machines through their paces as well as supporting a terrific cause in the process.

Horsepower in the more traditional sense....

 Represented at the Ekka are many different types of breeds of horses. Two that took my particular interest this year were the Queensland Mounted who put on a terrific display and of course the heavy horses: which were also very well represented.

Lunchtime....

 

 Lunch at Ekka presents itself with many different choices from the classic to the award winning. Left is the classic Strawberry Icecream (it wouldn't be a trip to the Ekka without one) and on the right is the Highland Park Grass fed Eye Fillet 280g MSA graded, Minchinbury NSW, Champion MSA Graded (non Wagyu) Branded Beef of Show and Gold Medal Winner, from the Royal Queensland Steak House Restaurant (here).

Main Arena Puissance Jumping Action

The word "Puissance" I'm told losely translates to: "Really high Jump" (please don't quote me on that one). It involves horse and rider completeing a jumping course with optional fences and a final compulsary fence. The initial optional fences are aimed at warming up the horse before the final compulsary fence is attempted. These are raised in height as the rounds progress with the rider that achieves a fault free round overall taking home the prize.

 Ekka IgNites

 

 Horseman Guy McLean presenting the "Mates from the Bush" (left) and "Fire Dance" (right). McLean is an impressive horseman who demonstrates some incredible skills with his team of horses.





Back for their nighttime round were the Hilux Heroes, again putting their now clean Hiluxes through their paces. This time Faster, Higher and Harder than their day show.

Rounding out the day was a terrific Pyrotechnics display from Australian company Howard and Sons Pyrotechnics, presenting an amazing array of fireworks timed to a great selection of songs. This year featuring their amazing Fire Jet system just to warm you up a little demonstrating split second fire bursts that literally danced in time with the music.

It's not over yet...

 

For those that wanted to add a little more action to their day Side Show Alley certainly had a lot on offer this year.
 

Before you go I'll leave you with one final thought:

Acknowledgements:

These photos are marked as Copywrite to Justin Matthews, however the content contained within them is the intellectual property of their respective owners.