The Fair, complete with parade, funfair rides, showground events, market, arts and crafts and photographic exhibition all happened over the last weekend; with the main events featured on Saturday. Tina and I went to see the parade for the first time in many years. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was bright, sunny and warm.  At the start the breeze was pleasant, though it was to build up during the parade. We drove into the village and tried our luck in the Country Club car park. There was a spot for a small car - these days we have a small car! Parking has always been a challenge at the fair and, though its difficult to judge it did seem that there were fewer cars this year. Perhaps as the time didn't coincide with a holiday weekend in Canberra & Victoria.

Although we thought our timing for the parade was right it must have started a few minutes earlier; we hurried to find a spot that wasn't already 3 or 4 deep and managed just off the main road, Lamont Street. Our main interest in the floats was for our grand daughter who was leading the float for "Little Lambs", the child minding centre where she works. I didn't mention but the parades theme this year was Pirates.

Not wanting to lug my camera bag around with the DSLR, I'd taken the compact LX7. Now this is an amazing little high quality camera but like most compacts it doesn't have a proper viewfinder and with the bright sun I could not see a thing in the LCD. I had no choice but to set the lens to wide angle and point in the general direction.  All the pictures of the parade you see in the new Bermagui Seaside Fair folder in the picture galleries were shot this way and then savagely cropped to make sense of them. Great Optics!

The rest of the parade went by. Now I must tell you about the Sun Umbrellas. These were introduced last year and were such a success that there were even more this 20 I believe. The idea is that a group of artists are invited to decorate 3m umbrellas along whatever theme they felt was appropriate, and seek sponsors.  Given the history and nature of Bermagui this tends to be things associated with sea, gold, sunshine, sand and wild life. They are paraded by their sponsors or the artist, whoever claims the right.  At the end of the parade they are assembled on the showground and at about mid-day are auctioned.  The proceeds going to the local pre school this year.

The wind by the time their turn came had got up and some had great difficulty controlling them. All was well in the end and the auction went ahead and was a great success. Also part of the parade were lots of different cars, ancient and modern. tractors, a couple of makes caught my attention a wonderful Hot Rod with chromed engine and open bonnet, and a stunning Aston Martin.

There were many other parader's but you get the idea. When they'd all passed we followed to have a look at all the things on display. Unfortunately we had a date with the photo exhibition, held again in the surf club.  This is a wonderful addition to the village as it doubles as exhibition space as well. The improvement over our cramped quarters in the Community Technology Centre rooms or before that the low ceilinged downstairs meeting room at the Country Club is huge. More space bright white walls, sky lights plus concealed lighting - Great.

The visitors here flowed in and out almost continuously. We handed out voting slips for the peoples choice seniors and juniors picture and we had to keep emptying the waste paper basket that had been designated The Receptacle. Tina and I took over from David and Linette so they could have a lunch break but they returned quite quickly and were needed.  I sold my flyty pelican picture which was getting a lot of attention and subsequently on Sunday Mist over Gulaga and Wallaga Lake. That paid for the matting which is nice. What was even nicer was the news on Sunday that Pelican had won peoples choice. The whole show wrapped up by 2pm on Sunday and everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief for another successful show. Enough from me. Below are the Winner of the Brollies which I photographed at an earlier preview, and my winning Pelican picture. Thank you to everybody who liked them.    Peter Cotton