We went to the Childers Festival of Cultures today, the second day of a 2 day event. This year is the 15th year for the festival and over the years the number of people attending has grown from 6000 to 50,000 people. We got there about 8:30 this morning, and it was good we did as parking was already a fair hike from where the street stalls and entertainment was. It was interesting to see that the event this year was dog and smoke free. A sign of the times. Mind you, it didn’t stop people taking their dogs – maybe the word didn’t get out about that. I didn’t see anyone smoking in the area though.
The main street ( which is also the Bruce Highway) was closed off, and market stalls had taken over the road. The stalls sold everything from clothing, jewellery, and handmade soaps and jams, through to hats, novelties and home wares. Some of the local community artists were there showcasing the regional arts and craft groups.
There were also a lot of food stalls selling food from different countries, Thai, Japanese, French, Hungarian, to name a just a few. Some of the food you could buy included crayfish (Redclaw, and excellent), kebabs, burgers, all different types of sausages and even Tibetan momo’s (dumplings). We had the crayfish, salt and pepper calamari and the Japanese gyoza. I forgot to take photos of the crayfish and gyoza – we were too hungry and greedy to wait. But I did remember to take a couple of the calamari (which was really, really good).
Wineries were also well represented with local wines from the Wide Bay area providing tastings and sales.
The entertainment was provided by street performers moving through the crowds, and musical acts from different genres and countries performed on the various stages set up around the area. There were demonstrations of rock and roll dancing, line dancing, and belly dancing and clogging. We hadn’t seen clogging before so that was an experience.
The music on stage varied from jazz, blues, rock and ethnic – so lots of variety for everyone. The Swinging Dixie Jazz Band was really good. So were Los Cobros – a blues and rock ‘n roll band.
Children were well catered for too with a petting zoo, carnival rides, a rock climbing wall for the older kids, and stalls selling toys, carnival food stuff and novelties designed to separate the parents from their wallets.
This was a great local festival, probably one of the best we’ve been to – if you happen to be in the area on the last weekend in July next year, go have a look – you know I wouldn’t lead you astray! Honest, I wouldn’t 
By the way – has anyone seen these?
They are called Chips on a Stick and are selling for $5 each at the festival. Someone’s doing well – $5 for 1 deep fried potato!! And they were selling well. Amazing.