Cowra Summer Breakout Bash

Every summer for the last ten years, Cowra has been flooded with an extra 70 or more residents for a week in summer. This eager group are made up of people from different churches around Sydney and comprise of people from 18 to 30+. They run a morning program from 9:30 to 12 noon catering specially for school aged kids but there are also afternoon activities like bbq and games at the pool for teens and evening activities for grown ups, such as mens cricket and pizza night and womens coffee and craft evening. You may also know of this kind of program as beach mission or vacation bible school. Whatever the case, it is a good chance for the town kids to get to know people of their age group from other schools and to burn off nervous holiday energy doing craft, skits and singing.

Why it shares its namesake with one of the saddest parts of history in Cowra escapes me. (During the second world war Cowra was a POW camp and to protect their honour, some Japanese soldiers tried to escape but were shot and died in the process. IT was known as the great Cowra breakout of 1944) Anyway, I digress ...The activities culminate in a Bash on Saturday held at Brougham Park( one of the larger parks in Cowra) and features the team setting up little booths with free face painting, hair wraps, balloon crafted animals and games (including catch the lolly man where a big strapping lad has lots of lollies taped to a caftan he wears. It is truly a great sight to see 20+ kids crash tackling a grown man to the ground).

The hair wrap stall ... very popular with the girls

This pavillion was a hot favourite ! kids everywhere had face painting, painted nails and fake tattoos

Aha ! What you see here is young D. Hayes had kicked his mate's footy too high up this palm tree. It took lots of thinking, a few failed attempts, 2 strong guys and a poking device fashioned out of one of the veins of the leaves to get the foot ball down. Fortunately his mother, the local high school teacher didn't see this or she would've chucked a spaz.

This band did great covers and kept us entertained. Love how they didn't bother to load the drum kit off the trailer. You can see the drummer in the background playing while sitting on the trailer.

Aussie BBQs are a must for every occasion. Even the commentators at the Rose Parade on New Years Day mentioned that the 2 countries which had the most number of BBQs were Korea and Australia. Onions and sausages are a must and sometimes steak and shrimp. I helped to sell canned drinks and opposite was the queue for the sausage sandwiches off the barbie. Traditionally, sausage sandwiches are served on a slice of white bread (since your eating sausages, you might as well go the whole unhealthy hog), topped with grilled onions, offered a squirt of tomato or bbq sauce and served to you on a napkin, folded together like a hot dog.

After cleanup, we were all tired but it had been a fun day :)