With a thick, deep splosh, it hits the ground and explodes sending a bright red wet stain across the road.
The Chinchilla Watermelon Festival has started and a lot more melons will be smashed before it ends!
There's nothing but good clean fun at the festival which showcases Chinchilla's main bounty in most unusual ways. I'm talking watermelon skiing, watermelon bungy and watermelon bullseye plus watermelon worn in weird and wonderful ways.
And I came home without a watermelon. How did that happen?
But I did leave my mark on Chinchilla, if only for a micro second. Courtesy of a white board marker I gave Chinchilla a spelling lesson and then wiped it off. I do not recommend anyone else does this unless your name is Heaney and you are in Chinchilla. Please don't send the graffiti cops after me.
At the Melons Only dinner we ate melon many different ways and watched as grown men paid $5,100 for the winning melon which weighed in at 86 kilos. Yes folks, the money went to charity so it was a good deed.
The Saturday street Make it, Bake it, Sew it, Grow it Markets were a real surprise for their size and variety.
I found watermelon earrings, bags, soap, cupcakes,
muffins, liquorice, jelly, hats, beanies, candles and watermelon by the bowl at the CWA's
tea and scones stall.
The street parade that followed was long and interesting with plenty of inventive floats, great vintage cars and shows of local machinery power.
Then it was onto the real fun of the festival which involved getting down and dirty with watermelon, lots of watermelon. People were lining up to be dragged over black plastic strewn with broken watermelon and water. It looked really messy but from their faces, I could tell it was a lot of fun, big fun.
Chinchilla is about 300 kilometres west of Brisbane which is about three and a half hours driving time. The festival is held every second year in February.
Keep watching www.melonfest.com.au
Disclaimer: Ed+bK was a guest of Tourism Queensland.