Chinchilla Melon Festival back but Miss Melon contest canned

After a four-year hiatus a Queensland town’s iconic Melon Festival is back – but one feature hasn’t stood the test of time.

Lucy Brown, 24, is keenly anticipating the Chinchilla Melon Festival. Picture: Nigel Hallett

After a dark few months the western Darling Downs region is ready to welcome thousands of visitors to celebrate Chinchilla’s world famous Melon Festival.

It has been four years since the rural community, about 300km west of Brisbane, has been able to put on its biannual marquee event, and Chinchilla Melon Festival president Doug McNally said the community couldn’t wait to showcase its home.

“It certainly gives us back a bit of identity, we’ve had a had an identity through some nasty stuff in the last few months with the activity out at Tara and now the bushfires that are around us, but to give us back a joyful identity is something that the town looks forward to,” he said.

Constables Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, and local man Alan Dare were gunned down at a Wieambilla property – halfway between Tara and Chinchilla – by husband and wife Gareth and Stacey Train and brother Nathaniel Train in early December.

The festival will be headlined by Australian country music star James Blundell, and punters are expected to line up for hours to have a go at activities including melon skiing, pip spitting and plenty of other melon related fun.

But one of its mainstays won’t be returning after the four-year hiatus – the hotly contested Miss Melon competition is no more.

“We have probably matured a bit from that, it doesn’t do very well in today’s society, and probably rightly so,” Mr McNally said.

There is no threat from the current bushfires to the festival going ahead, or for anyone making the trek along the Warrego Highway.

“It’s an opportunity to lift the spirits of our community some are doing it very tough right now, there’s plenty of homes that have been burned down in the bush and it’s a pretty serious time for those families,” Mr McNally said.

Brisbane woman Lucy Brown, 24, will be one of the many thousands descending upon the town.

“It’ll be my first time, it’s a peculiar thing to go to but I can’t wait,” she said.

Festivities start from Friday with a jam-packed event schedule finishing Sunday afternoon.

The Melon Procession starts at 10am on Saturday.