Top End town holds mango festival featuring produce, themed music, and an eating competition

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Despite soaring heat and humidity, mango lovers have flocked to a festival celebrating the fruit in the Northern Territory's Top End. While growers are busy packing trays for sale, residents enjoyed mango-themed music, local produce and a hotly contested eating competition.

Transcript

00:00I want the mangoes in me, I want the mangoes in me.

00:06Mango devotees singing the praises of a revered fruit were among around 2,000 people who travelled

00:11to Bury Springs just south of Darwin for a mango festival in the epicentre of the Northern

00:16Territory's growing region.

00:18They're not so sweet in Melbourne but we've heard they have really good mangoes here in

00:22Enti.

00:23Just the epitome of what Darwin is on the outside, you know, it's tough but the soft

00:29in the interior.

00:33And some just couldn't get enough.

00:36The flagship event, a mango eating race, competitors sucking as much flesh from skin and seed as

00:41they can in a two minute time trial.

00:46The winner devouring eight whole mangoes, or one piece of fruit every 15 seconds, deploying

00:53a technique years in the making.

00:55I loved mangoes as childhood, that was how I used to eat it, squash it and take the juice

00:59out of it and then rip it and eat it.

01:01Today's festival is a celebration of an industry that brings over 120 million dollars to the

01:06Northern Territory's economy and provides Australia with over half its mangoes.

01:11It's also a chance for those in Darwin to get outside at one of the most brutally humid times

01:16of the year and embrace their inner mango madness.

01:20It's when your brain valve bounces, you don't get enough sodium in your brain so you can't

01:25reason properly.

01:26During the build up here we start to get a little bit hot and bothered and everything else and

01:30people get a little bit excitable but as I said it also brings events like this which

01:33bring people together.

01:35There was one group noticeably absent.

01:37Unfortunately we can't get the growers come along because they are so busy in their packing

01:42sheds.

01:43It's been a strong season with growers expecting to yield more than two million trays of fruit,

01:48a fraction going into local products like pickles, jams and ice creams.

01:52We love mango!

01:54But for die hard fans there's only one way to consume a mango.

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