Last weekend was the 10th anniversary of the Kurilpa Derby in Brisbane.
It is a fantastic annual community celebration of life on wheels.
The Kurilpa Derby is a major social and community event where the main street of the West End (Brisbane) is blocked off for the afternoon and taken over by all things colourful, fun, family and related to bikes…and other environmentally-friendly people-powered mobility, such as skateboards, scooters, roller-skates, trolleys, prams and everything in between!
The Derby is hosted by West End Community Association and is open to the general public and showcases the best that the West End has to offer in terms of business, community and lifestyle.
I have not previously been to the Derby before and this year it came highly recommended. Boy and I glad I went.
I had a brilliant time.
What happened at Kurilpa Derby?
The event is a much loved, anticipated and popular event.
It was a stunning, sunny day – and there was a great turn out.
Leki was at her floral best and I went as a jokey to pay homage to the ‘derby’ theme and also for the upcoming Melbourne Cup.
The day started with the Kurilpa Derby Street Parade.
Leki and I joined in the street parade along with all the other participants floats, families and locals.
The Parade was colourful and noisy and a lot of fun. We were surrounded by colour and energy and lots of locals, families and community groups participated.
The effort and thought that people had put into decorating whatever parade mode they had and their costuming was impressive.
There was so much to see in the parade, like the Brazilian dancing girls, a ‘public pool’ (float), beautifully decorated rickshaws, couches on wheels, unicycles, a tall bike, lots of environmentally-themed mobile displays and a number of killer drumming troupes who keep the parade bopping along.
An amazing oversized water rat ended up winning the float first prized prize.
My personal parade favourite was the beekeeping team-theme float. This was an understand, but well executed exhibit that had a spunky lady dressed as a bee inside a box decorated as the ‘hive’ as their float. This hive float was pulled by two fully equipped bee keepers (in full bee keeping suits including smoke cans). This crew handed out ices-poles anyone who wanted them the whole time – brilliant!
After the Parade, the road remained closed and there were a range of activities, demos, novelty races and entertainment, such as a Pet Parade, a cocktail race, skateboard demonstration and heaps of other novelty races.
It was brilliant to see so many visitors and families out and about. Kids were roaring up and down the street in between races enjoying the freedom, safety and fun of having an allocated street to roam free and go wild.
It was such a delight to see the community – all locals and visitors alike – come together in such a celebratory and inclusive way.
As the sun went down the festivities continued. The bars, shops, cafes and restaurants did a roaring business and were keep buys all day and night.
Many people stayed on after to attend the Kurilpa Beggars’ Banquet, which is a brilliant community potluck dinner extravaganza.
If you have never been to the Kurilpa Derby before, be sure to put it on the calendar for next year. It is well worth it!
Below are a few pics from the day. See more photos at local Greta Pavlova’s Album.
Images my own, from Kurilpa Derby FB, @imogenbunting & @brisvagueness. Montage from The West End Magazine.