Four tonne of melons and seven days of events are the culmination of a very successful Chinchilla Melon Festival. A biennial event, the Festival is a great economic boon to the small country township of 3,500 in Queensland’s south east corner, an easy three hours north west of Brisbane, along the Warrego Highway, between Dalby and Miles.
The Chinchilla Melon Festival celebrates the fact that Chinchilla produces approximately 25 per cent of Australia’s melons.
Local melon growers, Dennis Dickman and his wife Jan, visited the USA a number of years ago and noticed there was a melon festival being planned in Rush Springs, Oklahoma, a town similar in size to Chinchilla. Returning to Chinchilla, in the grip of another dreadful drought, the community welcomed the idea of an event such as the Melon Festival to lift its spirits. That was in 1994.
Celebrating Chinchilla’s melon growing, the Festival is designed to be fun, and to interest young and old alike. Novelty events, such as melon skiing, melon bungy, a two kilometre melon bolt, pip spitting, melon juicing and melon ironman events, are hilarious. A busload of young UK visitors put up a great effort in all melon competitions, but unfortunately followed in the footsteps of their latest English cricket team!
The Big Melon competition creates statewide interest, with many competitors from other melon growing areas such as Bundaberg, Kingaroy, South Burnett areas and the Lockyer Valley. The 2001 winner was from Bundaberg, weighing 87 kg. This year local grower Dennis Dickman won with a 63.6 kg melon, the fourth time he has won the event. This year’s drought was the main reason for lighter melons in the competition.
Brisbane ABC’s Spencer Howson was also a competitor and brought his effort all the way from ABC’s Toowong Studios in Brisbane, however he has much to learn! The Harvest Company bought the winning 63.6 kg melon for $5,000 at auction, proceeds going to the local Blue Care organisation. Visitors from as far afield as Buderim, Maleny and Brisbane watched multi award winning chef, David Pugh, from Restaurant II in Brisbane, recently returned from a special assignment in Washington, USA, give a cooking demonstration and lunch.
Alison Alexander, Brisbane based food consultant, judged the cooking competition. Former local girl and multi award winning apprentice chef Christie Fromm, was a star, winning a number of the Chef sections. It was great to see keen and strong competition in the children’s section too. Other events that added to the fun atmosphere were the Battle of the Bands, golf and bowls competitions, poets’ breakfast, procession and family concert, with a great fireworks display.
The crowd was estimated to be in the vicinity of 5,000, with many committed to returning in 2005 for the next Festival.
