Oktoberfest held at the Club Boutique Hotel was a weekend full of German beer, food, competitions music and great company. With a perfect blue sky overhead, crisp cold beer and enthusiastic participants, the competitions went off without a hitch.
The contestants for the German reading competition had a good laugh as they attempted to read aloud some tongue twisters in German in front of the crowd while a handful of contestants in the German singing competition blew the crowd away with their unexpected singing voices and excellent renditions of 99 Luft Balloons.
As the afternoon went on more pork knuckles rolled out, more steins were refilled and more fun was had by all. The next competition to follow was the kids tug of war where the boys versed the girls, after much anticipation the girls won the game! However all participants won a goodie bag filled with colouring books, pencils and lollies. The adults were up next and everyone’s competitive streak started shining through. With over 20 participants it was decided that there would be two heats. The first two teams battled it out, then the second two teams gave it a go and finally the two winning teams fought it out until the end. The winners won a mix of pretzels, stubbie coolers, beer glasses and Erdinger beer bottles.
As the sun moved further across the sky the crowd started getting cosier, pushing tables together and mingling. All the kids with their faces painted rejoiced in the jumping castle after their tug of war victories while the adults snacked on kransky and bratwurst sausages and pretzels.
After refuelling from tug of war, 8 woman and 8 men prepared for the Strongman/woman competition. The Bavarian Strongman/man competition consisted of splitting a stump of wood in half, hammering in 5 nails followed by an arm wrestle by the two fastest contestant. Two heats of the strongwoman and two heats of the strongman declared Tony to be the Bavarian Strongman winner and Agnes to be the Bavarian Strongwoman Winner.
As night crept in, the German beer kegs started running low, rounds of peach and butterscotch schnapps shots started make their way to the tables and more German sausages and pork knuckles were coming out of the kitchen. The crowd more jovial, kiddies coming off their sugar high and the last competition of the night coming up. The stein holding competition saw 4 heats of 20 contestants test their shoulder and arm strength as they held out four steins filled with water for as long as they could. The finalists came down to two police versus two fire-fighters, the competition was fierce. After 5 more minutes Tony and Ethan were left battling it out and ultimately resulted in the stein holding winner, Ethan.
Soon the live music from Reuben and Nick picked up the atmosphere and saw half the crowd dancing away the night and some even taking over the microphone.
A big thanks to Elsie and June for playing the piano and holding the sing-a-longs, their journey to Cunnamulla for this event is very much appreciated. Thanks to everyone who helped out and we hope you all enjoyed yourselves and we look forward to seeing you all there again next year!
