We had a brilliant day at the Royal Melbourne Show last weekend. The glorious sunshine. The nostalgia of showbags. The creativity in the craft and cakes pavilion. The cute animals. The views from the ferris wheel. We even stayed for the fireworks. It was the day of the AFL Grand Final public holiday and school holidays so the crowds were there too., You will see the crowds in many of the photos that I share here. They were hard to avoid but it was hard to resent others wanting to share the fun.
We got there for a late lunch so we could stay for the fireworks. It was our first time at The Show since 2018. Last time the main place to find a meal was the fresh food pavilion which had both meals and products. This year the "eat street" was in the same pavilion as the showbags rather than with the Gourmet Pantry and Cellar. It made it harder to avoid the temptation of showbags which we usually visit later in the day. So we bought a couple early: Old Style Liquorice and Chupa Chups.
As an aside, in previous posts when I have mentioned
Showbags, I have found that they are quite particular to Australia. These are like promotional bags with samples of food and branded merchandise. They often are packed with chocolate bars, crisps and plastic toys for kids. There are also more and more showbags such as tv shows, sports and beauty products aimed at tweens, teens and adults. Examples I saw included such as Bluey, Perfume, AFL footy teams, Brooklyn 99, Slime, Gudetama, Minecraft, Barbie and Tools. Something for everyone! The amount of showbags in the pavilion is sickening but the nostalgia of showbags make them hard to resist. Yet the showbags today seem more miserly, more expensive, more junky and lacking the excitement of my childhood.
I wanted something quick and easy so I bought a cheese pretzel. It was nice. Not as nice as the corn, jalapeno and halloumi muffins that Sylvia had made (which I had brought along to snack on) but it was not the place for innovative food.
Sylvia was more wowed by the food. She could not resist the burrata on gnocchi and napoli sauce. She loved it. She was excited to see foods she had read about but never seen in real life. The Chimnuts looks fun but really indulgent. She was also tempted by the watermelon juice with mint iced tea. And most exciting for her was the tanghulu in the Gourmet Pantry and Cellar.
We also had a really nice fresh lemonade with our lunch. It was really nice to get a cold drink that was not sickly sweet. We saw a little of the horse jumping. I really wanted to see the wood chopping but by the time I remembered it was on, it was too much hassle to navigate to the Rural Pavilion. We were sad there seemed to be no cats at the show this year; we had enjoyed the cat judging so much at our last visit.
One reason for a small lunch was that we were planing to go to the Gourmet Pantry and Cellar next. It is more fun than the showbags because although the products are more expensive, there are often tastings and quality food on offer. We tasted chocolate, smoked olives, truffle mayo, blueberry juice, cheese, nougat, spice mixes, etc etc. Lots of good food.
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Sylvia was tempted by the "Flurrito (a fairy floss ice cream burrito) but what she could not resist trying was the Tanghulu. These are a traditional Chinese snack where mostly fruits (but there were also chicken nuggets tanghulu on offer) which are coated in melted sugar that hardens once it cools. You can see a photo of her mixed fruit tanghulu (the "fruity ninja") on a stick in the middle of the above collage.
I am not usually a macaron fan but was wooed by the Milo macrons. Bright green with a malty chocolate centre called my name! They were nice but more chewy meringue macaron than malty chocolate flavour. Sylvia loved the sound of the biscoff and the creme brulee macarons.
Next was the "Spotlight Makers Pavilion". We started in the craft area. I loved this knitted Bluey. So cute and that smile was the Bluey smile that makes me want to smile back.
This ceramic cup of noodles was really cute. The way the chopsticks are stuck into the noodles looks cute and is acceptable in Western nations but I have read that it is considered disrespectful in Asia.
Lots more impressive knitting included a nun, a platypus and a sheep jumper.
Some of the categories were unexpected. This crocheted rug with covers of Taylor Swifts "Eras" or albums, was in the Pop Culture Craft categories.
I loved this dress sewn out of crisp packets. Surely nobody would want to wear it but it is such a fun novelty item. By now, Sylvia needed a break. The craft section was busy and she was itching to go. Little kids in the crowds with toy machine guns (yes they sold them at the Show) that had a very annoying "ack-ack-ack" shooting sounds made the throng even more irritating.
We had good chance to de-stress at the dodgems. Nothing like a chance to get out your frustrations in a little car with the safety of well-cushioned shock absorbers. This is the sort of cautious thrill-seeking that I can handle on the fairground rides.
After a refresher, we headed back into the Makers pavilion to check out the decorated chocolate and have a brief tutorial from the CWA on how to do Japanese braiding with a notched disc of cardboard and strands of wool. The we started to view the entries to the baking and preserving competitions.
One of the most impressive piece of competitive cake decorating was this depiction of Miro's The Kiss in cake form.
This Baby Grinch cake was so cute.
The detail on the Corpse Bride cake decorations was wonderful.
More noodles! This ramen noodles decorated cake was getting into "is it cake?" territory. It also evoke the plastic noodles on display in the windows of some Japanese cafes. The suspended chopsticks seem to be held up by magic.
This possum riding on the back of a emu decked out in native flowers was just amazing. The detail, the creativity, the humour, the majesty, the wonderful ode to the Australian bush!
And more noodles. These fondant decoration depicting Asian meals were my favourites among numerous impressive displays of decorated cupcakes that were too gorgeous to eat.
I love the bread baking. So many wonderful loaves but the cut section, where the judges do their taste testing, gets dry so quickly that it makes them look less inviting. The decorated focaccias were fantastic because they looked like something I wanted to eat rather than food that has been destroyed by testing.
The amount of ANZAC biscuits to be judged was impressive. Like many of the bakes, there were quite a few categories for younger bakers as well as gluten free versions.
I enjoyed looking at the art, mostly by school kids, around the walls by the baking. That avocado drawing is so lifelike and green.
We came by an old Clydesdale that was by a fence so that the public could pat her. But as we arrived, the lovely Princess Peach was ready to go. It is a tiring day for the animals at the Show! We saw more Clydesdale horses and some sheep and goats.
Sylvia gave up an dreams of taking a lamb home and turned to the Barnyard Buddies game. It was a game of chance where she used a net to pick up toy ducks and cows from a pond. The numbers on the bottom of each catch were added up to tell her what groups of prizes she could choose from. She had two goes before she got enough to walk away with a little toy stuffed sheep.
(Note: within a day of getting him home, he had a hole in his seam that needed to sew up. At the least the stuffing is more robust these days. I remember my mum winning me a little toy dog in a fairground attraction that leaked lots of polystyrene beads when he got a hole in him.)
Sylvia was determined to stay for the fireworks and thought it would be nice to go on the ferris wheel just before sunset. It wasn't easy to take photos with the annoying branding plastered across the pods but I liked this one of a ride in front of the Melbourne city skyline.
We always go on the ferris wheel at the Show but this time was the first one that it was almost totally enclosed by perspex with a small gap at the top of the pod for airflow. (See the top photo of the ferris wheel)
Sylvia was not keen on the animal nursery but we ducked into the exit and she was delighted to see a llama and an alpaca. This llama seemed quite pleased to see us too!
We had a walk down Neon Alley as we were thinking about dinner. It was entertaining to see all the weird meals on offer but they were either too meaty or sweet for us. Unusual food included Dagwood Dogs with neon sauce, the Elvis burger with fried chicken between two sweet glazed doughnuts, Flaming Hot Cheetos on corn on the cob, gummy bear loaded fries and Tim Tam churros. It was a series of crazy adventures in junk food!
En route to dinner we also found ourselves by the crowds whooping in disbelief at the BMX Stunt Show. There were too many people to see what was happening on the ground but we could hear the banter of the MC and every now and again a bike would fly high about the crowd. This was a different sort of thrill seeking to Neon Alley and even more scary but amazing to watch.
The above photo looks like the bike is on the pavilion but it is just an illusion where a rider has actually flown so high off the ramp that he can be seen soaring higher than it.
We could not find much other than gourmet fairground food for dinner. There was lots on offer in the Eat Street: Greek, Italian, Indian, Gozleme, Dumplings, Cheese Toasties. They all had limited menus that could be put together quickly so the queues moved quickly. I had a Beyond hotdog at the Kaisers Grilled German Sausages stall. It had a vegan Beyond Meat Bratwurst in a bread roll with lettuce, tomato, red onion and sauerkraut. Sylvia had some delicious falafels in pita bread with lettuce, tomato, red onion and tahini sauce. She got some chips on the side to share.
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Then Sylvia wanted coffee and I was going to get a hot chocolate but I got lost and found myself by the Cheeky Crumbles stall. I could easily walk past the apple crumble but can't resist a peach crumble. The stewed peaches were in one pot, the crumble in another and when they were together in a tub it was drowned in custard. The peaches were wonderful but crumble is so much better when it is baked with the fruit and crispy on top than baked separately and put together just before serving.
After dinner it was getting dark and we made our way to the Arena which by now was packed with crowds. It took a bit of effort to get past the people standing around the edge to be able to even spot the few unoccupied seats and then make our way past more people to sit down.
The main event was the fireworks. While we waited, country singer Sarah Cantania was wheeled on a stage attached to a tractor. Occasionally the Show feels like an old fashioned agricultural fair. She entertained the audience with classic hits by well known country singers such as Johnny Cash (Ring of Fire), Dolly Parten (Jolene) and Taylor Swift (You Belong with Me). This was followed by an upbeat modern show of lasers accompanied by Indigenous musician EmDee on a yidaki (the word for digeridoo in East Arnhem Land).
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The fireworks finally lit up the sky. They were loud and bright. They went for a satisfyingly long time. Finally the sky was dark again and the crowds flowed past the neon fairground rides, out of the gates and onto the trains that took us home. We were so tired when we got home 9 hours after leaving that the next day was a very quiet one. It gave me time to sort out the photos. There were so many that it was difficult to narrow them down to a selection to include here on the this post. It is fun to go to the Show but I don't expect to go again for a few years because it is so expensive and exhausting.
Previous posts on our trips to the Show:
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