Stevie's Wanderings: 06 Heathcote Show

Today is Show Day in Heathcote, a small town of around 2,800pp situated on the Northern Highway about 110km north of Melbourne depending on wind speed and direction.

It is also Melbourne Cup Day, and Rekindling has just won the Cup as I write this.

However the Cup was not the point of coming here. With a bit of effort and focus I managed to sleep in a little while - it was cool and cloudy this morning - then spruced up and headed off to the Heathcote Show, a few km south of Glen’s bush block.

Easy parking on a side road, then $10 entry.

First in the gate were the horse competition rings. Five of them I think (possibly six - some of the signs were a bit small and distant for my old man eyesight) for the different competitions. Beautiful looking horses.

Wandering right along, I came across some people minding their own business. Now given that I have been through the citizenship operation (exactly one year ago today!), don’t accuse me of stereotyping Aussies, but … who am I to judge?

After scolding myself for displaying my quasi-foreign bias, I discovered that they were watching the sheep dog trials.

Seriously clever dogs (and handlers!). Could have watched them for hours. Well, for at least several more minutes.

Then it was off to the livestock pavilions. The first was the sheep and goat pavilion.

The merino sheep - resplendent in full wool coats - were down the other end getting some attention from the judges. The nearest goat was pleading to be taken for a walk …

Then off to the poultry pavilion. Sounded like a scene out of The Music Man.

Nearby was the obligatory petting zoo for little kids.

I had to move on quickly - I had skipped breakfast and the exhibits were ... beginning to look a lot like luncheon.

So, off to the Lions Club stall for an egg & bacon sanger. Hit the spot and sort of nudged aside the image of those exhibits on the BBQ. For a little while.

A large coffee, then back to the dogs. Whereupon I tried to channel that canine intelligence - with little or no success. Self-improvement using role models never really worked for me. But those sheep started to look quite tasty, so again I moved on quickly …

There was a little collection of old cars. Four Morris Minors similar to Elsie’s. Plus a Morris 1100 and a couple of ring-ins - a Rover 3.5 and a Borgward Isabella.