The Bendigo Showgrounds will be pretty busy this weekend, what with the Sunday Market and the Home Maker Expo.
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But being the (past …sob) owner of a little Grey Fergie, the attraction for DTM will be the vintage tractor, machinery and vehicle display being put on to aid the beaut Bendigo Dragons Abreast organisation.
It’s on today and tomorrow from 9am to 3pm.
Tractor fans are special.
They know songs about cute little Fergie tractors.
Their dunny doors are decorated with old tractor calendars.
And when they pass on to that great paddock in the sky, it’s never cloudy, because they become ex-tractor fans.
Sorry.
Shed of delights
DTM has actually seen possibly the weirdest tractors in the world. Here in Bendigo.
In a certain shed, in a certain outer suburb of Bendigo, there is a Grey Ferguson tractor – fitted with a V8 Chevrolet engine.
And just when you’ve finished alternatively drooling and laughing at it, you turn around and see tucked away deeper into the shed, a little lawn mower/tractor… fitted with a Jaguar V12 engine.
See. Tractor people are special.
Sinking feeling
Even city people seem interested in our tractors.
It must’ve been a quiet news day, but on March 16, 1956, the Melbourne Argus reported breathlessly:
“BENDIGO, Thursday: Farmer Read, from Goornong, took his tractor down to the Campaspe River today and rigged it up to pump water on to his property.
"He left the tractor there, chugging away.
“Later he noticed there was no water coming through – so back to the river he went.
“There was no tractor but there was an oil slick on the water.”
Deer oh deer.
Broadway beckons
Bendigo is now so well connected to the world of performing arts it’s spooky.
Here, we’ve had the very successful launch of Adam Lyons’ Ned A New Australian Musical, which our tourism head, Kathryn McKenzie, proclaimed was helping make Bendigo the “new off-Broadway”.
Meanwhile, next month in Brisbane, Bradley McCaw, a former Bendigo kid and now multi-awarded world stage and screen performer, is putting on a glittering show Bendigo To Broadway.
Profusion of pubs
When you read some online advice to people thinking about visiting Australia, you wonder why anyone makes the effort.
Most of it is about the number and danger of our snakes, spiders, crocs, sharks, drop bears and flies.
But then you come across stuff such as this: “Australian mines (one of the most important industries, which accounts for 15 per cent of Australia's GDP) cover 0.02 per cent of Australia's land mass.
"More land is occupied by pubs.”