The 2008 Country Carnival was hosted by the Denmark SLSC over the Australia Day long weekend, and a fine time was had by the City members who made the trip.
Some people got down there early and made it a long long weekend but by Saturday morning everyone was setup at the Ocean Beach caravan park and the Camp City was fully established.
Once everyone was setup it was off to Lowlands Bay for a surf, swim and beach cricket match, now you can't get more Aussie than that on Australia Day. Back to the caravan park for some lunch and a nana nap to prepare for the evening Some people went for a late paddle at Ocean Beach and all the kids bounced away on the giant pillow (like a bouncy castle without the castle bit) it did get a bit boring for them so they decided to make it a bit more interesting by throwing water balloons at each other. Unfortunately the caretaker didn't find it amusing and turned the fan off that keeps the pillow inflated.
So the kids played volleyball and uno near the tents and the adults supervised while chatting drinking and eventually got around to cook a bbq dinner with lots of lamb chops and a few quiet ales being downed (adults only of course). Shelby added to the evening by doing the best Sam Kekovich (the lamb man) impersonation we had all ever heard. Then the kids took off playing spotlight while the adults continued with the evening.
Sunday came around so quick after our late evening then it was off to the beach for the carnival. Denmark laid on great weather and a fairly decent wave for all of us and to the kids credit they all had a crack at the surf.
Even though City only had 16 junior competitors, the City red shirts really stood out and they had a go at everything, aging up, down, and sideways even helping out other clubs make up teams. It looked like we had 100 kids there.
The senior members of the club also had a few members who did a fantastic job in all the events they participated in Ben, Simon, Tom, James, Ali and Tim well done guys.
Some outstanding efforts from young and old alike, Connor Smith had some great results in swim and board, Bruce Read made the final of the beach sprint, Tash swam well in the surf race, and yours truly had a couple of paddles and actually made it around the course.
Bridget Darragh had a great day showing a lot of more experienced competitors some great skills.
Gabrielle Murphy also showed off her talents in the running arena, and water arena!!!!
William Dwyer was part of the first place team in the board relay, with younger brother Pete coming in 1st in the surf race and Nicholas Slattery bring in 3rd position, an unreal effort from our group of City competitors. These are only a few of the results but all of the kids excelled for their CLUB!
To all the Age Managers Jenny, Derek, Chris and to the parents that marshalled and did water safety and also looked after the kids a very big thankyou.
A special mention must go to Matthew Slattery who was an Official from sun up to sun down.
Sunday arvo (late arvo) after the kids and some parents had been shuttled back to the caravan park a couple of quiet beers were downed at Demark Surf Club on the balcony over looking Ocean Beach, a great way to end a very eventful day.
Sunday night was interesting to say the least with a guy sitting on a surf ski tied to the roof of a car paddling around the caravan park with kids chasing him (this was not a City person) and much to the adult women's surprise late in the evening a group of teenagers (again not City) came wandering by and one of the boys was streaking in the caravan park. The torches came out and lots of wolf whistles happened.
As the night progressed we heard a couple of loud bangs as we then found out from the kids some kids from another club had set of some Nangs(for those of you who don't know what these are it's like a sparkle bomb only with soda capsules so we all found out).
Monday came around too quickly and that meant packing up and the drive home some fortunate members decided to extend the weekend and stay another night but some of us had to go back to work.
It was a great weekend with friendships made and good times had by parents and kids that went to this great country carnival, these people can't wait for the next country carnival for the fun to start again.
TO ALL OF YOU THAT WERE AT DENMARK WELL DONE YOU HAVE ALL DONE CITY OF PERTH SLSC PROUD.
See you all back at the club.
Vice President
