We thought it would be a nice idea to head up for a couple of nights and stay at the nearby town of Longford. As I'm still laid up with my Achilles tendon rupture the races seemed like a nice diversion. Di would also be able to enjoy a bike ride in the area, which has a network of lovely back roads ideal for cycling. We managed to find a lovely spot right on the river on the Friday afternoon when we arrived...
The next morning Di headed off for her ride nice and early, then we made our way to Evandale. We arrived just in time to see the start of one of the novelty events, the unicycle race. Here's a photo of most of the competitors at the start line ...
Just as the gun was about to go off, a fellow rode up to the line on his extended unicycle ...
... which caused an unfortunate tangle with the guy in the blue helmet directly in front. The upshot was that the Man In Black came a cropper, but bounced right back up again. The guy with the blue helmet then gave the Man In Black his unicycle ...
Despite having to make up a considerable amount of ground, the Man In Black showed his class by winning comfortably. A very interesting start to our day at the races.
As mentioned earlier, the Village Fair is held in conjunction with the Penny Farthing Championships. At the entrance to the fair were a couple of musicians dressed in period costume entertaining passers-by ...
The lady on the right is the pianist, accompanied on the washboard by her companion. I thought it would be fun to get a little video of them playing ...
Yes, that was the race caller you could hear in the background.
The fair was quite small, but we did come across a stall run by a photographer by the name of Bruce Bain. We loved some of his bird photographs - especially of the Superb Fairy Wrens, and came away with a triptych that we're going to hang above Di's piano.
Back to the main street of town where the races were happening lots of people had taken up position across from the Start/Finish line in the shade of the old Clarendon Hotel ...
There were people about the town riding lots of different kinds of bikes, including these two Bike Fridays set up for touring ...
At the other end of the course lady and her son were tootling around in recumbent tricycles between races ...
Penny Farthing competitors randomly pedalled around town between races ...
Here's the start of of the Ladies race ...
... and the winner coming up to the finish line with her fellow competitors scattered in her wake ...
For the mens final we made our way to the last corner, a very tight bend where a Scottish Pipe Band was playing when we arrived ...
The mens race was an absolute ripper, with the lead changing several times. Here is a little video of the leaders approaching the final corner on the penultimate lap ...
The next time around, the leader had rather too much speed on for the tight line he tried to take around the corner and went cartwheeling over the hay bales on the other side! Luckily, he emerged unscathed and remounted his iron steed to cross the finish line.
All in all a very enjoyable day out, which we look forward to repeating with some mainland friends who will be visiting the state next year. I wonder if we'll see this colourful and leggy creature the next time we're in town ...
All the best until next time ...
