Claisebrook Carnivale, East Perth

A couple of Sundays ago, Jac and I went to the Claisebrook Carnivale in East Perth. The event was on from 11am to 4pm with the Telethon Duck Derby fundraiser at 2pm. Like many people I had an entry in the derby, having “adopted” a rubber ducky for $5.

Telethon Duck Derby sign

Telethon Duck Derby sign

I’d be much more interested in gardening if I could have a duck tree. But roast duck, not inflatable duck. Or maybe a bacon tree.

Apparently ducks grow on trees in East Perth

Apparently ducks grow on trees in East Perth

We arrived after 11.30am. It was a lovely sunny day, perfect weather for a day out at the park.

Claisebrook Carnivale

Claisebrook Carnivale

There was a rainbow train doing laps around the market, driven along by a tractor.

All aboard the rainbow train

All aboard the rainbow train

You could paint a paper umbrella for a small fee. Quite a few kids and their parents were getting right into the painting.

Paint a Brella activity

Paint a Brella activity

A band played jazz from the stage.

Live music

Live music

We said hi to the cute dog at the pet photography stand. There were a few dogs out and about that day, happy to have a sniff and a pat.

Pet photography stand

Pet photography stand

After a quick walk around, we went to the food stalls in search of lunch. La Latina was selling paella with seafood, pork and chicken. They didn’t look ready to serve paella yet though, and there was no paella bubbling away in giant pans to tempt us, like the spectacle of the paella stall at the Twilight Hawker Market – now THAT’S paella!).

La Latina stall

La Latina stall

There was an ice cream van, with registration plates that said “ICECREAM”.

ICECREAM van rego plate

ICECREAM van rego plate

There was a kebab van.

Kebab van

Kebab van

The Rotary Club of Karrinyup had a sausage sizzle stand complete with salts, mustards and sauces.

Rotary Club of Karrinyup food kiosk

Rotary Club of Karrinyup food kiosk

But you know what was missing? The smell of cooking. Although it was close enough to lunch time, the food stalls didn’t seem to be fully cranked up yet. Personally, I arrive at festivals and carnivals ready to eat – the one or so hour of food nothingness is wasted time, in my opinion!

Jac really wanted a Spiral Spud and went straight to the stall to get one with garlic salt. It was deep-fried to order. Although it was nicely golden-brown and crispy on the outside, we both thought the potato could’ve been cooked through a little more. We enjoyed it but agreed it got trickier to eat the lower you got down the skewer. As we walked around the carnivale, each bite felt increasingly dangerous and I was secretly worried that an unexpected bump in the ground would result in impalement on the pointy-tipped skewer. The woman who served Jac asked her if we were going to the William Street festival in Northbridge. We hadn’t known there was a festival in William Street – that sounded interesting!

Spiral spud with garlic salt

Spiral spud with garlic salt

We washed down the salty fried potato with a banana and strawberry smoothie from Waikika MooCow. The banana and strawberry smoothie was sweet, creamy and refreshing, but we were still hungry for more savoury food.

Waikika MooCow strawberry and banana smoothie

Waikika MooCow strawberry and banana smoothie

There were stalls selling clothes, arts and crafts and food items like olive oil and honey. There was face painting and a baby animal petting zoo. The market wasn’t very big (an observation, not a criticism) and once we’d walked around and looked at all the stalls, eaten our potato and drunk the smoothie, there wasn’t really anything else to do.

Juji and Jay arrived and were quite disappointed with the (lack of/variety of) food available. After a short discussion and googling the details about the William Street Festival on our phones, we decided to head to Northbridge to check it out. See the next post: William Street Festival, Northbridge.

Carnivale stalls

Carnivale stalls

The Claisebrook Carnivale was part of Eat Drink Perth, the City of Perth’s food and wine month, but we thought there wasn’t enough variety of food to really appeal to food lovers. It looked to be a fun day out for families though. We didn’t return to watch the derby, but I got an email the next day advising the first, second and third place duckies, none of which were my ducky.

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