It was great to have some time at home in April but we still had the ‘festival bug’ so drove to Canberra to attend the 53rd National Folk Festival over Easter. Might as well take in the biggest in the country during our ‘Year of Festivals’, and Canberra is only a 4 hour drive with stops. The festival and camping is held in Exhibition Park in Canberra (epic) which is a very large area. It needed to be as this festival had it all – themed shows, workshops, forums and talks, visitor participation (choirs, music sessions, dance sessions, uke muster, yoga, zumba, workshops etc), spoken word performances, national awards, street performances, circus, parades, arts, kids sessions, dance performances, instrument makers, and a great marketplace with food, drink, clothes, handcrafts, hats, jewellery and almost whatever else you can think of.
In our 4 days we got so much variety as we saw a few old favorites (ie Ballpoint Penguins, The Fagans, Shortis & Simpson) and lots of new acts (ie Eric Bogle, Irish Mythen, Enda Kenny). The daily Uke Muster was too advanced for us so only did one 9am Uke session. There were 114 acts/performers listed in the program and we saw 46 acts. This was a big , well-run festival machine with 1200 volunteers, 15 stages and high quality acts from around the world. We also walked over 25 kms (38,000 steps) and had many late nights and 12 hour days. Sessions started at 8:30am and finished at 1:30am.
Themes of social justice were alive and well in many of the songs. In fact people were singing 30 year old songs about climate change that were just as relevant today. Kind of scary to think about that. The atmosphere was great and we enjoyed it all.
After our Canberra excursion we stayed in Sydney until mid-June so I could be around for the Queens birthday announcements and my one minute of fame. I was honoured to be awarded an Order of Australia Medal for service to women through charitable initiatives for my volunteer work with Dress for Success Sydney. We then headed north and made our regular stops; Port Macquarie for dinner with Anne and Mick, some national park camping on the beautiful NSW north coast and a visit to Explorer Motorhomes to pick up a part for the Lestervan. Since we enjoyed it before, we returned to Bribie Island and this time camped on the beach, a 20 km beach drive from the town. Getting through the deep sand to the beach was challenging but Dick and the Lestervan managed it well and our camping spot is very beautiful.
Enjoyed a nice 4 km walk along the beach, had lunch and skyped with Eileen and Darcy; while we waited for low tide so we could drive back along the beach and then navigate the sandy 2km access road. I took a 6 minute video of that drive to distract me from worrying about getting bogged. Dick and the Lestervan did well; and we’ve included a condensed one minute video of the driving we did to get off the beach.
All in all we’ve had a very pleasant start to our trip, although we are still looking for warmth and sunshine. The Lestervan is now pointed northwards.