Windhoek to Perth: The Big Aussie BBQ

Yesterday it was time to greet the queen in a real West Australian way – we had a massive barbeque on the Perth foreshore.

There were 120 barbeques, 120,000 sausages (unfortunately no boerewors), 8000 liters of tamato juice, 130,000 drinks and more than 100,000 people who came to greet the queen.

Public transport was free and we took the train into the city early Saturday morning.

Because we were there early we got into the main stage area, and we got close to the action. This whole area was later locked off and the rest of the common folk had to go somewhere else to look at the queen on the big screens.

This created it’s own problems of course, because my youngest little darling wanted to go to the toilet, and I had to go through what seemed like 7 heavily guarded gates to get out, and had to get stamped to ensure that I’m allowed back in again. The same applied if you wanted to buy sausages or drinks. Security was tight and there was no mercy for anyone without the red stamp.

But it was great fun. I’ve never had the opportunity to see the queen in real life before, and I was surprised at how human-like her Duck was. (I don’t know why this duck is always accompanying her, it must be some mascot or something.)

The crowd was extremely well-behaved, and the WA Police tweeted later:

“about 100,000 ppl/no arrests/1 move-on notice/3 elderly ppl collapsed (fine now)/3 kids reunited with carers #CHOGM”

It was an alcohol-free event after all, as the Premier correctly assumed that good decent Western Australians won’t start drinking at 9am on a Saturday morning…well, not the 200,00 that came to the foreshore anyway.

The national anthem was sung with pride and once again one couldn’t help but notice how much these people love their country and how proud they are to be Western Australians. And that includes me.

We were close to the action, and when we asked my youngest what the queen looked like, her response was “she looks very old!”

Apparently Her Majesty also had a look at my daughter’s CHOGM photo earlier this week, and she was very impressed with this beautiful young girl from Africa. She may even have smiled when she looked at it in admiration: