Collector

My next adventure was to Collector, in time for the famous pumpkin festival. Collector is a town of about 300 people, 58km from Canberra - but make that about 16,000 people on pumpkin festival day! Crazy stuff!

Collector is apparently named after the Indigenous name for the region, colegdar. It was first settled by Europeans in 1829.

When driving through the town, one of the first things that is hard to miss is the gothic sculpture called the Dreamer built in the 1990s by Tony Phantastes. Apparently, its been under a demolition order for a few years - but the land on which it stands remains up for sale. Anyone interested?
 

Almost opposite is the bushranger hotel - apparently famous for the shooting of a local constable by a member of Ben Hall's hang in 1865.

The locals seem to be quite proud of being Australian *groans*

But not as proud as they are of their pumpkins :)

 

 They certainly are very large....

And the festival actually was a lot of fun - with movies in the church :p

Happy dogs everywhere :)

Colour :)

Scarecrow decorating competitions....

Very coordinated sheep :)

And some of the best pumpkin soup I have ever had...

The choice of port-a-loo location was, however, interesting :p

 Wandering around the rest of the town - it seemed like the pumpkins had completely taken over...

But the views were also quite gorgeous :)

And I appreciated the Collectorians attitude to life!

And my horde of goodies was awesome...I will definitely be back next year!