| National Show 2001 |
| On the Friday, 27th July, Samantha, Dave and I set off to yet another show, this time, the National in Welkom. We took with us a total of 60 exhibits. It was a long, but enjoyable trip with no hiccups along the way. Even the long wait at the road works between Queenstown and Jamestown passed by quickly. A word of culinary warning! Try to avoid eating the pies at Jaco�s TakeAways, in Aliwal North. Unless you can handle the taste of old socks. The cokes were fine tho. Having never been to Welkom, we delightfully surprised at the signs directing us to the show venue. To me this was a brilliant idea and the party involved must be complimented. Lets hope more clubs will use such initiative. With the road so clearly marked right to the door, we still rode right past the hall! This, because the hall itself was not named and with us being from out of town, none of had any way of telling which hall was the Ferdi Meyer Hall. We eventually found it by recognising some of the fellow exhibitor�s vehicles. Once inside we were warmly welcomed by the Hosting clubs� members, and friends from afar. With enough time at hand before benching opened, we stood around chatting to old friends, and having tea. Benching opened a little earlier than stated in the catalogue, which was welcomed by those who arrived early. After Dave, Samantha and I benched the birds we had brought, we assisted with benching other exhibitor�s birds. With lighting in the hall being so poor, we found it difficult to read the labels on the stands and benching was a bit slow. With having still to find our accommodation, unfortunately we did not stay too long and we ended up leaving at around 7:00pm. The accommodation was superb. We were welcomed by a very friendly hostess at the Stanville Inn Hotel and shown to our room. We expected temperatures to nosedive and fully expected to all be cuddling up for warmth. However, we stepped into a gloriously warm and comfortable room and soon after unpacking and relaxing in a nice hot bath, we hit the sack for a good night�s sleep. Well the night wasn�t all that long for some of us - Can you imagine - Dave, getting up at the crack of dawn and WALKING in the freezing cold on crackling lawn, two big blocks to buy a cigarette lighter! Oh and the local newspaper and some koeksusters! Shame he was quite blue when he got back. Anyway, a wake up call from reception at 06:30 had Samantha creeping out of bed and dragging herself down to breakfast - still not awake, but up nonetheless. Breakfast was the norm, - cereal to start and bacon & eggs to follow downed with a cup of coffee, tea or juice. Breakfast was very enjoyable in view of the fact that quite a few of the budgie crowd were staying at the Stanville Inn, and the cameradie helped to make a good start to the day. Most of us arrived at the hall just after 7am - we thought we were going to make an early start, but Welkom time seemed to be a little different from ours - well, the town Central Clock was wrong, and most of the people arrived a little later than us. After we finally got started, administration experienced some problems with printing some of the judge�s forms, but in the end, they did okay and judging including major awards was finally over around 3;00pm. Then we had a very nice lunch and went �home�. The general lighting in the hall was poor except in the judging area where natural light shone thru large windows giving the judges no cause for complaint. Dave and I spent some time with the rest of the Budgie guys, watching the rugby in the hotel bar, while Samantha caught up on some beauty sleep. (Not that it helped!) - just kidding . . . Then we went on to the dinner and prize-giving. Dinner was a very relaxed affair, but I feel the hall was far too big and the seating arrangements far to spaced out for everybody to consider themselves part of a group. Tables were arranged along two walls of the hall with enough space between to hold a dance. The meal itself was very tasty. After the prize-giving dinner we drove around Welkom to see what the town looked like at night and then went back �home�. Sunday morning saw us up early and ready for the long trip back home. We still had to wait for debenching however. We rushed through breakfast thinking we had to get a good parking in front of the hall, but when we arrived at the hall, it was to find that we were the only ones there. After watering our birds we chatted to some of the other exhibitors and got some sound advice from Heino and George on breeding quality show birds. Their input and advice was very welcome and much appreciated. Finally after what seemed like eternity, Albert said debenching could begin. Cape Town guys first, then East Cape and Durban. This is when the 24 stairs up to the hall multiplied by 10. Dave, Samantha and I helped the first lot of exhibitors to debench their birds - this to speed things up, so we could also make tracks as early as possible. We finally left Welkom at about 12:30. The drive home was uneventful until we got thru Aliwal North. Just outside Aliwal, our bakkie turned into a tractor, well it sounded like one - the new exhaust we recently had fitted, snapped at the join where they welded it. At one of the road works waiting points, I attached some �Transkei� brackets, securing the exhaust and preventing losing it all together. (Shame, the poor birds - we didn�t have enough earplugs for all of them). Once back home, the exhaust being under guarantee, we only had to pay R70-00 towards labour. We arrived home at 20:00, giving Dave half an hour to put his birds to bed, before the lights in the birdroom switched off. After unloading Dave, we went home, put our birds and ourselves to bed. On behalf of the East London Budgerigar Society exhibitors, we would like to congratulate - the National Show hosts on a very enjoyable show, the show teams and the winning birds and all our fellow exhibitors. See you all soon at the next show. For all those who were unable to make it to the National - you missed out on a experience. SEE Show resuls for MAJOR AWARDS . . . |
 |
 |
 |
 |