Town meets country

Auckland seems to be fizzing with public events at the moment. Must be the season for it. My ‘new thing’ this week was to attend the Kumeu Show, which I had somehow missed in nearly 20 years growing up in West Auckland.  Upon entry ($10 later) we were blasted with the cacophony of fairground jingles, screaming children and confused parents trying to figure out the overly complicated token system for rides. Our merry group added to the bedlam four adults, one 5-year-old, one toddler and a newborn. The fairground seems to be a place where the world is turned upside-down in more ways than one – parents walk around stunned with vacant looks on their faces while children seem to know exactly what to do, confidently dragging their bewildered carers this way and that.

                                                                                                           

Aside from the rides, there are the animals, which is really the point of the whole thing. My toddler was particularly taken with the kunekune pigs, which could be purchased for $75 each. Just quietly, I would have paid $75 not to have to take one home, but each to her own. We had close encounters with alpacas, which remind me of strangely shaped teddy bears, and the weirdest looking chickens I’ve ever seen in my life, who were cage-neighbours with Jemima Puddleduck. Adding to the surreal nature of the show were the gigantic pumpkins. Bummer for the guy with the smallest gigantic pumpkin. He would have come to the show fully stoked with his gigantic pumpkin and then, upon seeing the others, hung his head in shame.

One of my favourite parts of the show came when my daughter and I played the laughing clowns game, where you stick ping pong balls in the mouth of the clown and hope to win one of the awesome prizes hanging up on the wall. Of course, we only won the ‘consolation prize’— a plastic doll which lost its arm two seconds later after an over-exuberant yank. Still, a prize is a prize, and my daughter is still playing with the doll, and has even disfigured it further by yanking off one of the legs. She’s learning to accept diversity, so I’m cool with that.

All in all, a fun day out for young and old, with a little bit of something for everyone. I’ll definitely be returning next year. I might even go on the ferris wheel next time. I’ll have to work up to that.