Oz Part 1- Splendour in the Grass

Well, its been a while but I am back on the blog - apologies family for not writing for a while, but it seems that there is an issue with me being able to upload photos - hence my lack of enthusiasm, as a picture spares me the task of having to write as much! Anyway - I have beckoned old Rick to give me a hand, as he is far more whizz like in matters of I.T.
Okay, so since last writing, I have a lot to tell  - so I am going to break it up into 4 parts which I hope to finish in the next few days. Part 1: is Brisbane (my festival experience), Part 2: Whitsundays & New Zealand, Part 3: Return to Sydney and finally Part 4: Melbourne & Adelaide.
Okay so here we go...
After my first week and a half of being drowned out in Rainy Syndey, I got a flight to Brisbane to meet my friend Mel - to attend the worlds most expensive music festival - Splendour in the Grass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9PqwEspuVk
A 4 day shindig starting on the Thursday and ending on the Sunday night. Its a full on camping affair in the most beautiful surrounding, an area called Woodfordia which I suspect is probably like Poffadder for the remaining 361 days of the year. Its set in areas that have natural amphitheatres with the various stages are set up against hills so you get great views of the bands where ever you sit or stand!
Headliners included Kanye West, Cold Play, Kaiser Chiefs, Pulp and about 30 other well known international and Ozzie bands.
We arrived in Brisbane on wedsnesday, we needed to spend a night in the city with Mel's mates - Viv & Bart. The night entailed getting rations in alcoholic form, as well as some basic camping food and then also preparing the car - eg decorating it. You see its considered good form to dress up  in some sort of costume for these festivals - the more extreme and over the top the costumes the better, and some festivals even offer prizes for the best team dress ups. Splendour offers a prize of tickets to next years festival, and at $530 a ticket, its definitely worth it! I had nothing to do with the actual decision of what we were dressing up as, but going with the flow has never been an issue for me, and I was all to keen to get involved! The decided theme - albeit a little contreversial, was "The Sisters of Splendour", and all 6 of us in our group - dressed up in full nuns habits! We decorated our car by painting on with liquid chalk - some happly clappy gospel song lyrics mixed with some slightly more risque slogans such as,  "Jesus is coming....look busy..", anyhoo our tactic was to stand out.. and that we did. A Station wagon with 6 nuns inside, mattresses strapped to the roof, tinsel around the bumpers, magnetic lettering with our team name, and flourescent liquid chalk writing scribbled all over, and finally the finishing touch of black and white bunting flags tied around the entire car certainly made us stand out. In fact people enjoyed our outfits so much, we avoided the car being strip searched at the entrance as the security said we looked very honest (no alcohol is supposed to be taken in). All the contestants were judged at the entrance, as they came in - and we subsquently found out that we have indeed won the tickets for next years festival- a prize worth $3000! Out of thousands of hopeful pirates, smurfs, slutty cowgirls, cavemen, farm animals, lego people and a variety of other get ups, we were selected as the most original of all! Our nuns habits were the talk of the festival... or so we think. Although we wore the outfits sporadically (Nun Thursday and Nun Saturday were the allocated days),
Back to the festival, so the "Sisters" set up camp with another 8-10 other chaps, and we had a happy commune of 6 tents with one large area in the centre as our general social spot. Met some fabulous people, and saw some hysterical sights - some incredibly drunk and zoned out people, but a very good vibe. Some of the highlights:

• drumming workshop - playing very random instruments with a bunch of very happy hippies
• seeing some seriously jacked up campers, we're talking solar panels for hot water the whole shebang
• Listening to drunken late night banter throughout the campsite, some of which was so insanely random it was hysterical
• being approached by some seriously out of it people and getting asked to bless them (perils of being a nun)
• being able to dance and behave like a nutcase and have no one look at me twice!
• delicous food
• watching half of our group be invited to take part in a live fake sex show! They got to all wear very lewd skin tight full body suits to perform on a rotating giant bed, on a small open air stage to the narration of a very hysterical bearded german man...
• Really good ablutionary facilities (even though you had to wait about 45 mins in a queue to shower)










• and of course, some seriously good music!

We left exhausted with sore heads and livers on the Monday morning and made our way to the airport, to take a flight to Mel's hometown, Airlie Beach - in the gorgeous Whitsundays!