Have already described it to a few people, but here goes, for posterity (or for as long as Blogspot is a Thing) ...
The Back Story
Way back in 2002 I spent some time helping Jack who at that time was Chair of the Royal Melbourne Show, which - aside from the fairground sideshows - is a collection of competitions and exhibitions of rural produce and skills from around Victoria. It is the peak Show of over 100 Victorian Agricultural Shows.
Then around 2010 I became involved in The Kilmore Agricultural and Pastoral Society, helped create a website, a sign for the showgrounds/racecourse, helped create the concept of "Community Street", helped plan the 150th Show, and helped on Show Day for two or three years.
As usual, work commitments got in the way and my involvement waned over the years. However my interest in Ag Shows remains - particularly the smaller shows outside the large cities. These small shows are all unique, and each reflects its community - quite often the largest event in the community's calendar. And each represents hundreds or thousands of hours work by unpaid volunteers and enthusiasts to bring that community's Show to life. Some individual shows have grown or specialised to reflect local farming activities so now we have shows with large rodeos, equipment and vendor field days, eco-shows, themed shows (for example Apple Festivals, Flower Festivals and so on) and old fashioned community fairs.
It turns out that there are over 600 of these shows across Australia each year - some huge, like the Royal Easter Show in Sydney and the Royal Melbourne Show in September. Some are inactive and some run every second or third year. There is a great web site that lists all the annual shows and dates, and lists upcoming shows by state, at www.countryshows.com.au.
This year
So my current plan is to spend a month on the road to test the caravan and ute, relatively close to home so if anything is not quite right I can break the tour and adjust whatever it is.
My plan is to visit five shows in Victoria, during November:
Sat 4 Nov
Dookie Show
https://www.facebook.com/Dookie-Show-173672795976726/
Tue 7 Nov
Heathcote Show
https://heathcoteshow.wordpress.com
Sat 11 Nov
Echuca-Moama Show
http://echucamoamashow.com.au
Sat 18 Nov
Mansfield Show
http://www.mansfieldaandpsociety.com.au/show.html
Sat 25 Nov
Yea Show
http://yeashow.org.au
Five shows, just under 1% of the total number of shows. 99% remaining after November!
The Progress Dashboard
This is a good programme for a month - testing the notion of visiting a show each weekend (except Heathcote which is on a Tue so I might give that one a miss). Probably travel Sundays then squat in free local camps & national parks during week, one day a week in caravan park for shower, washing, battery charge.
If you look at this map you will see that it’s all pretty close (scale: Melbourne CBD to Kilmore is 50km / Melbourne CBD to Seymour is 100km)
In the larger scheme of things this is a tiny trip (look closely for the little red route at the bottom right).
In total it's around 750 km including Heathcote, 640 km excluding Heathcote. Ute does around 13 litres/100km with van, so that’s around 50-ish litres for travel, plus local travel for food, shows etc.
Instead of setting a strict budget for this trip I will simply aim to economise without draining life out of the tour, and see how I go.
In other news, I managed to take some unencumbered money out of the super, so we can get some essential maintenance done - some dead tree felling and deadwooding, some solar power, and so on. The important thing is that I managed to navigate the opaque world of super and get something done - there is a YUUUUGE amount of information about getting more $$$$ into your super account, but almost none about how to get it out. As it turns out it is a straightforward process. So now I'm more confident about setting up an income stream from the remaining super, starting January. In prep for that, I have resigned from our company: "I intend to retire permanently and do not intend to ever work again for 10 or more hours per week." A big statement, but made me feel better.
