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Saturday, December 30, 2006 - (see all news for this day)
woodford folk festival - 09:51 PM
(filed under 'general')
yesterday, i mentioned going to the woodford folk festival with nicola & jack & i linked to some pictures (here are the pictures again, if you missed them the last time), but since i've settled back in at home now, i thought i'd go into more detail.
this'll be a long entry, so i'll cut it here if you're on the front page & you can read more by clicking the link.
i've never been to a festival before .. at least not one as large as that. i'd certainly heard of it, but that was about it. when nicola suggested it before they arrived, i thought it was a great idea. initially, we were only planning to go for the day to see the john butler trio. when nicola & jack arrived that evening, we looked at the woodford folk festival website to see the program for the following day & realised we'd missed the performance we were hoping to see. it was on that night, not the day we were planning to be there!
we figured it would be a fun day anyway & decided that we'd head out there & possibly stay overnight. they'd packed all their camping gear for their own holiday & i had a tent smiley & i could use. we started to look at the program & marked off a few things of interest. clever jack found on the program that the john butler trio was actually playing a second gig on the thursday! that was even better, because thursday's gig was an afternoon one instead of late evening on the wednesday. with smiley with us, a late evening gig would have been a bit difficult to attend.
so the next day, we had a leisurely breakfast & unpacked then repacked their car at a casual pace, ready to leave at about midday. the trip there was pretty quick. it had been called the malaney/woodford (or maybe woodford/malaney?) festival in previous times, so i assumed it was close to malaney. it's not actually as close as i thought, so the trip took just under the two hours i thought it would take, since woodford is not all that far away from the caboolture exit off the highway.
as soon as we arrived, i was really impressed with the set up. the lanes inside the gates of the festival were clearly marked & there was even a laptop & eftpos (electronic funds transfer at point of sale) station for paying for your tickets by card as you drove in!
with our wrist band tickets in place & a couple of camping tags for each of our tents, we set off up the hill to find the overnight camping areas. it had been raining for a few days & the dirt roads were almost totally mud. just as well jack's car is a four wheel drive, because there were a couple of scary moments there when we were sliding toward parked cars. it had been a possiblilty that i might bring my own car & drive back on my own, but it's just as well we decided against that, because as good as she is, my little car would never have managed all that mud .. not to mention the fact that i've never driven in extremely muddy conditions before, so i wouldn't have known what to do even if the car had been able to handle it.
it didn't take us too long to find our way & the area we needed to be in was a little bit higher up, so the roads weren't quite as bad where we were camping. we set up our tents in no time at all (you've gotta love dome tents with only one or two poles) & headed out to find the shuttle bus to take us over the other side of the hill to the festivities.
walking in the mud was tricky! i'd brought smiley's gum boots & so he was fine (although he wasn't too keen when the mud splattered up higher than his boots & got on his legs) but i still had to hang onto his hand tightly to make sure he didn't slip over. we made it to the bus stop area & tried to wipe off the excess mud, but there was only so much you could do. the mini bus was full of mud anyway, so it didn't really make that much difference.
the buses were really cute. well, not the buses themselves, but the signage in the front windows. they had numbers on handwritten signs placed inside the front windows to say which number shuttle bus each one was, but instead of 'shuttle bus', the signs had been given a bit of word play. one was called 'scuttle bus', another was 'subtle bus'. it was rather amusing & was, in fact, subtle because i didn't notice it until the following day when nicola pointed it out.
signage around the very extensive camping area was all quite funny as well. roads were given names. each one was a 'way' rather than a 'road', & so they'd been given amusing names like 'wenta way', 'that way', 'this way' & even 'getyourenda way' & endless other clever variations. i can't recall them all now, but it was rather fun to read all the street signs as we were on our way out after we'd stayed overnight. there was one last sign above the final 'exit' sign pointing to the way out which said, 'reality'. heh. 
after the bus dropped us off at the entrance we found our way inside & were surprised at the incredible variety of stalls. there were lots of craft, clothing & other artsy things available, but the sheer number of food & drink stalls was amazing! we only ate there once for each day we were at the festival, but we all agreed that it would be nice to be there for more than two days, even just to have a chance to try all the food. it was really good food, too. not cheap, but certainly worth the price. there wasn't a dagwood dog or deep fried crap stand in sight. actually, there was a hot dog stand, but it was gourmet hot dogs. when i went to get one & they asked me what type, i said, "just a plain one, please" & was told there was no such thing as a plain one. they were right, too. the one i eventually chose was a chicken, mango & macadamia sausage & it was heavenly. talking about it with nicola later, i realised that even if we had had been at a place where there was only typical 'fair' food like dagwood dogs & fairy floss, we still would have paid about as much as we did for the excellent food that was at woodford.
a big part of the whole focus of the festival is that it's as envrionmentally friendly as possible. wherever there was a bin, you had several choices (plastic, glass, paper etc) where to put your rubbish. the place was very clean & when we were sitting on the hill in front of one of the tents where live music was playing, between bands, the mc even suggested that if anyone was getting up to go anywhere, that they pick up any rubbish around them & take it to the bin.
there was such a great range of people there. people of all ages & lifestyles. there were lots of kids & most of the young people there seemed to be attending with their parents. there were lots of places to drink, but the atmosphere wasn't one of drunkeness, only fun. i've heard that festivals like the big day out, or
splendour in the grass can be a bit more rough, certainly not as family-friendly as the woodford folk festival. i suppose they're more about the music, specifically music more for people in the sixteen to twenty-five age group, than about general folksy activities which includes music, so they're bound to have a very different atmosphere. having people there as old as my grandparents & as young & younger than my child is sure to temper the possible aggro of some young people.
we didn't go to that section, but we were told that this year, the festival is even more geared toward having a place especially for the kids, even pre-school age children. nicola & i agreed that we'd love to go again next year & stay for the whole six days, so when that time comes, i guess i'll look into the kid activities more. smiley will be four by then, so i imagine he'll be much more into getting out & about with other kids his age.
when we arrived at the hill in front of the grande, the tent where the john butler trio were going to be playing, we decided to head up to one of the few empty patches of grass. we were far too high on the hill to even see the feet of the people on stage, but as we sat there longer, some people in front of us got up & left, so we quickly slid our blanket & belongings forward into the space left by them. now we could see legs. this happened once or twice more & so by the time the john butler trio came on to play, we could see bodies & eventually even their faces. woohoo! lol!
the john butler trio were great. i'd never seen any of their video clips before, so i wouldn't have recognised any of them even if i'd tripped over them, but i certainly recognised some of the songs.
smiley absolutely loved it. he could see nicola & i we were getting into it (jack was enjoying it too, but he employed more of a 'lie back & chill' sort of method rather than the 'bounce around up & down on our bums' method that nicola & i were into) & so we had smiley jumping about on our laps & having fun with holding our hands while waving his own hands about in the air. he got very excited when a few very successful mexican waves were carried out across the whole crowd. he'd never seen one before, but once one was done & i helped him raise his arms in the air at the appropriate time, he thought it was great fun. when the second & third mexican waves were started, he was raring to go & laughed out loud each time it was his turn to raise his arms.
when i say that we were sitting on the grass, well, it was mostly grass. well, the grass was there, but it was almost all brown from the mud! down below us, a few people passed by who were totally & completely covered in mud. if only the batteries in my camera were up to it, i would have taken some pictures of them. they had not one tiny piece of skin showing through the mud. when we'd walked to the big tent, we saw some people at the side of the tent having a great time dancing away in a big puddle of mud, flicking & kicking it up all over the place. perhaps the mud covered people had been dancing there, or maybe they'd fallen over in the slippery mud & figured they may as well just do the job properly.
in our final position on the side of the hill, i'd managed to dig my heels in (with the help of a certain twelve kilogram weight on my knees) & had made two substantial foot holds. my bum had settled into the mud under the rubber-backed blanket & developed a little seat of sorts. it was actually quite comfortable, considering the muddy surrounds & lack of something soft to sit on. as we sat there, many people went past, up or down the hill, & some would receive cheers from the seated people around them as they slithered about almost falling into the mud. there was a bit of wildlife around as well, in the form of a rather persistent spider which kept appearing on or around our blanket. perhaps it was trying to find a dry place out of the mud, or maybe its house had collapsed & it was looking for a new place.
after the band was finished, we headed back through the festival to get the shuttle (scuttle? subtle?) bus to return to our camp site. nicola & jack cooked a lovely meal of noodles with chicken & broccoli. after the excitement of watching the band & all those mexican waves, smiley went to bed quite early (for him) & so i stayed up for another couple of hours having a quiet drink or two with nicola & jack.
unfortunately, i slept rather poorly because i didn't have enough padding underneath me. finally at around 5am, i put one of my two pillows under my torso & slept for one & a half hours straight until smiley woke. he slept fine the whole night. i guess three year old boys don't have as many pokey-outy bits as thirty-four year old women (like hips & thighs, etc) to dig into the hard ground. next time i'll make sure i have some sort of mattress with me. there's nothing like not sleeping well to ruin camping for you. if we are going to return next year for the whole six days, then i want to be able to sleep well!
in the morning, we packed up our camp into the back of the car & headed back to the bus to find some breakfast over at the festival. amongst the wonderful array of foods, we found some yummy pancakes. the previous evening, on our way back from seeing the john butler trio, smiley had seen a little yellow guitar hanging up in one of the shops. it was actually a ukulele. he'd been bugging me about it all evening & from the minute he woke up in the morning, so before we had breakfast, we found the shop & i bought him his yellow 'guitar'. he adores it. they had a whole range of them in lovely bright colours. they even had tiny little kid-sized piano accordians! i might go to the shop (they're at mermaid beach, down the coast) & buy one of those for smiley's birthday later in the coming year. his poppy has one & smiley loves to have a go on it. so smiley was all happy after we got his guitar & lovingly held it while we all ate breakfast.
if nicola & jack had more time off, i'm sure we would all have been happy to stay longer, but since they already had plans for the rest of their holiday & had to be back in sydney by a certain date, we caught the shuttle back once more & headed off toward home, or as the sign at the exit so rightly said, reality.
A wonderful account of a great trip. Shall we go next year? 'Of course we can!'
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i've never been to one of these festivals either. sounds like you all had a great time even with the small inconviences.