Kurilpa Derby

On Sunday the local suburb of West End held its annual Kurilpa Derby. This started off as a 'take back the streets for the comunity' style march focusing partly on wheelchair access but over the last five years has expanded out to be a street festival celebrating all things wheeled.

Initially there's a parade featuring a variety of wheeled transports - we want to see wings Gordy!

 accompanied by local bands

 and the occasional beer

 Just don't overdo it - yellow furry droop can be an embaressing condition

 After the parade finishes the kids get to race along the closed roads as the crowds alongside cheer

whilst we retreated to a chinese restaurant for yum-cha, beer and a ringside seat for the action

My partner, beer, bikes, yum-cha - how could life get better? Oh yes - dancing girls from the local Latin dance studio!

Further down the road was a roller derby bout and a bike polo arena

Bike polo is becoming a fairly big thing in the hipster cycling world at the minute but to be honest it's never appealed to me. I'm not a fan of ball sports and anyway I'm way too old, too unstylish and my tattoos are all hidden. Still, the bike skills on show were impressive and I'm a touch envious - just don't tell anyone.

The final event of the day was the squid relay - relay teams of two had to carry a raw squid in their teeth and transfer it without using their hands. It looked like fun - if you like raw squid that is

It's easy to be dismissive of West End as a well-off suburb that is fighting hard to keep it's exclusive status whilst pretending to be a Bohemian hang out. But it felt like there was a genuine sense of community there on Sunday - I think that every suburb should have a day where they open the roads up to the kids and just let people play. After all a community should above all else be a collection of people, not just a postal district or the location for an aspirational purchase.