The journey home

We left the chalet at about 11am, and headed back south, through Ballina, Coffs Harbour, past Port Macquarie, to Taree, where we spent the night. We ate in the local pub and found ourselves a room for the night. The following morning we headed out to Old Bar, where Elissa's aunt used to live. There were mud flats and beaches along there that would have been perfect for camping, and I think we'll be stopping there on the way up the coast in December. I wandered across the mudflat, as the water only got to knee level. It was beautifully clear and full of fish and shellfish.

On the drive to Saltwater, just up the coast, we saw a bird of prey perched on an old dead tree. We're still not sure what it is, but it's very pretty. I'm still amazed at the creatures you can see in the wild in Australia - Ben's chasing a kangaroo and spilling his wine, the koala in the tree by the Great Ocean Road, possums on the phone wires in Melbourne, thousands of fruit bats all over Sydney every evening. I can't wait to see what else there is in NT, Tasmania, WA and Queensland.

We hung out on the beach for lunch at Seals Rocks. There was beautiful clear water and a whole bay without any people. A gentle breeze on the hill we sat on over the bay provided good lift for the seagulls who thought they might be able to share our lunch. I made it as clear as possible that they weren't that lucky.

Then we drove down to Hawks Nest to pop in and see Elissa's parents. They provided much-needed coffee, and we headed back into Sydney, exhausted but content, and with lots of happy memories from an excellent long weekend.

Splendour in the Grass 2007, Day 2

We got up, breakfasted ourselves hard, and then headed out to Byron. We sat on the beach, trying to shoo seagulls away and enjoying the sunshine, then grabbed a lunch of burrito for Elissa and sausage and chips for me. At about 4pm we made it to the festival in time for Midnight Juggernauts, a dancy Aussie group, kind of in the vein of Hot Chip. We tried to get in to see Gotye, but he'd been put in the third stage, and there just wasn't room for everyone who wanted to get in there. Everyone had been saying how well organised the festival was, until this one, but other than that they'd done a good job. And we'd seen Gotye at the Metro a week before, so we hit the nearby bar.

We emerged again in time for Josh Pyke (who had the same problem with overcrowding) but he wasn't much cop so we headed back to the other stages, and caught up with a friend of Elissa's. He'd managed to get in by highly suspicious means, as had his friends. We learned later that it had been the worst year for fence jumping in the festival's history. The lot of us went to see Hoodoo Gurus, who were a good old fashioned rock band, and one of Elissa's surprise acts of the weekend. I wasn't overly impressed, but they did the job. Eager to see Bloc Party, I stayed where I was, as the others went to see Cut Copy on the other stage. But by about halfway through Bloc Party's set they'd played everything I wanted to hear, and the pressure from the crowd was pretty crazy, so I went to join Elissa and her friends for the start of Hilltop Hoods, an Aussie hip-hop group. Hip-hop's mot my thing, but the atmopshere in the crowd was great. After about 20 mins I headed over the catch Arctic Monkey's festival-closing set. They're still not my favourite band, but there's some catchy tunes in there, and it was a diverting hour and a quarter.

Elissa and I managed to meet up and ead back to the chalet. About halfway back we spotted Candice and Jo, and we all walked back together, grabbed a glass or two of wine and slept like babies! A good time was definitely had by all!

Splendour in the Grass 2007, Day 1

Waking up on the Saturday morning, breakfast was foremost in our minds, and Elissa and I headed to Woolworths to pick up everything. And it really was everything; bacon, sausages, beans, eggs, bread, mushrooms, tomatoes, ham, cheese, croissants, butter, icecream, potatoes, apple juice, milk. When we got back we cooked a breakfast fit for a king. Well, four kings, really. We didn't plan to be hungry for the day.

We set off walking to the festival, which was about 2km outside town. When we got there we ran right into the back of an hour-long queue of about 4,000 people, presumably all trying to get in to see Editors, who were the next act on the main stage. We made friends with a guy from Brisbane, and chatted, and bounced a beach ball around, and eventually got our wristbands and got in, in good time to catch Editors' set. They were great fun, and had apparently just come from setting Glastonbury, metaphorically, on fire. I'd not be surprised to see them headlining festivals the world over in a few years.

Wandering round the festival we could see the place was packed out, but there was a great atmosphere, everyone having the time of their lives, and looking forward to some excellent music. We went to the Save-A-Mate stall, as some friends of Elissa's were running the show there, and we grabbed some drink tickets too. Grabbing a couple of beverages we went to see Ash. They are now a three piece again, Charlotte Hatherley having disappeared again. I've just seen them on TV in an interview from Splendour and they say that Charlotte doesn't miss herself in their shows. I sgree, they sounded great, and I've been expecting Ash to sound tired for some time. Hell, they did sound tired at Glastonbury in 2004. Nothing world-changing, but some songs we all knew (including Kermit) and an appreciative crowd.

We watched The Cat Empire from much further forward, but shortly after they started, the bathroom called, so I headed off, leaving Elissa to get some great photos. The Cat Empire is one of Elissa's favourite bands, so she was having a fabulous time. We met up afterwards and wandered round some of the stalls, and got Elissa a blanket, but by the time the Kaiser Chiefs started, we disappeared back to the chalet. On top of the drive up, it had been a long day, and we weren't big Kaiser or Powderfinger fans anyway. We had a couple of drinks and headed to bed, ready for a big day on Sunday.

The Road to Splendour

Byron Bay is about two hours by plane, or about 12 hours by car, from Sydney. The cost in fuel and accomodation for one night and the cost in airfares is roughly equivalent. The view from the car, though, is far superior to the view from the plane, and the New South Wales coast is pretty quiet in the winter, so we drove up and enjoyed a couple of beaches on the way almost completely to ourselves.

We left on Thursday morning, and pulled up in Hawks Nest at about 2pm, at Elissa's parents house. Colin introduced me to his Old Grey Whistle Test DVDs and Vivienne put on the lamb roast, apologising several times for having slightly overcooked the lamb last time. The lamb last time was beautiful, for the record. Elissa and I headed to the beach and flew the kite a little bit, and we came back and ate, and played Rummikub for an hour or two, with more than a couple of remarks about turning tiles over and using them as blanks (as that had been a strategy by one of the players in the scrabble game last time!).

The following morning we headed out at 9am, and struck out for Coffs Harbour, and the Big Banana. The Big Banana is the first Big Thing in Australia, and is one of many, including The Big Merino, which we saw on our Melbourne road trip, and the Big Prawn, just up the road to Byron, at Ballina. My favourite is definitely the merino so far. The Big Banana was pretty tiny, and though the smoothies were pretty good, I feel like they could have done better. While we were there, some people on the next table were having a meeting about door to door sales, but we didn't establish what brand. It made our skin crawl to listen to their team leader, so we left and pressed on.


The next stop was on Harwood Island! We drove past a sign that said "All of Harwood has 50km/h streets" and Elissa asked, do you want to stop and take some photos? I said no, and then thought for a few seconds and said yes... So we went to the pub, picked up a stubby holder and a lighter, and took photos by the school and the sugar refinery. If it wasn't a tiny little country town with less going on in it than in Corby Glen, I'd probably consider trying to retire here.

From there, we headed up to Ballina, and the Big Prawn. There's not much to see here, so we pulled into the car park and took a photo and then pressed on. Byron Bay was only another 40km on or so, so we were excited to get there! We got into Byron at about 5.30pm and got ourselves a pie, and headed to the hostel. The traffic wasn't all that bad, but the town was packed with crazy hippies and music fans, and there were guitars and drums being strummed and beaten all over town.

We met Candice and Jo, who would be our housemates for the weekend, and were shown the chalet we'd booked for the weekend. Jaws most definitely dropped. The place was incredible! A full kitchen, a spacious lounge, a lovely bathroom, a balcony in front of the chalet with a really comfortable daybed and a table and chairs we used for breakfast. We were impressed. And Candice and Jo had got both colours of wine ready for our arrival, so we knew we'd get on well.