Oh wow, that was an amazing weekend. Friday morning we drove around and bought camping gear (nothing like planning ahead, is there?) then some clothes and were supposed to meet Bob at Mitchell’s house around 2-ish. At two I called Bob to find out where he was, and if he’d picked up Seb and Skitzo, but alas Seb was going to drive up by himself, and the directions he’d gotten to meet Skitzo were completely wrong.
I tried to ring to find out the right address, getting the number wrong and probably confusing shit out of someone along the way. Finally I got the number right and found out where he was - completely different address to what was originally given then corrected - third time lucky I guess.
Finally Bob arrived at Mitchell’s and we pottered around filling up water containers and so forth - making sure that we were carrying as much water as we could, as there was no facilities on site. The van was packed and we were off! It was nearly 3pm, so there was plenty of traffic as we hit the Highway Onramp, and I think it took longer to do the first 30km than it did to do the remaining 70+ km from the Caboolture BP Station to the event site itself.
Where was it, you ask? In a beautiful place about 30km west of Maleny, on the western side of the Maleny Range, on one of the plots of land that (I believe) makes up the Crystal Waters Ecovillage and was the location that I first went to a doof. They’ve improved the (dirt) road into the site a LOT in the two and a half years or so since I last was there, which made things an absolute breeze as far as getting to the camping/parking area.
As I’ve mentioned before, we left on Friday afternoon and arrived about five o’clock to set up camp. I had a matress in the back of the PimpMobile, so the big (super huge!) tarp was setup with one edge covering the back, so I could sleep with some shade over it. We spent about an hour setting up the tarp, since we weren’t on particularily flat ground, and as usual we’d forgotten something - namely the little toggles that make tying off rope a lot easier. Before our next outing, I’ll be buying a bunch of extra things to make life a lot easier.
After we’d setup, it was food time - herb and garlic sausages, cooked by Bob in my super-cool giant frypan - the best birthday present ever! When those were eaten, we wandered around and talked to some people. The fire was going, so we sat and talked for ages, and that was great.
The next morning was bacon and eggs, and landcare work. Our merry troop made ourselves useful stripping spiky tobacco and lantana from the stage area, ripping these nasty non-natives out so that some natives can grow. After an hour or two of this, we were wasted, so off to the creek to cool off, enjoying the coolness and finding a snake in the middle of the creek on a tree stump (pics later) which freaked us out a little.
Saturday night was the most amazing night, beautiful music, adventuring in my headspace and through the rainforest with my friends. I nearly experienced what would be called a “bad trip” but the group helped me get out of that. Mental note - tail lights on a car + armband that can look like a hospital wrist band = bad mental picture.
Everyone else crashed around 3am, but as usual for a doof, I couldn’t get to sleep, so I wandered around, back to the dance floor for a while, then back to our chill out area. Watching the sun come up was beautiful as usual, with the mist and fog that came with it keeping it cool and the relaxing effect was even more pronounced.
Eventually Bob arose, and we had pan-coffee for breakfast (since we had no kettle) along with the remaining brekky juice poppers and some peanut butter sammiches. We never did end up eating the remaining eggs, which I think I even left at my parents’ holiday apartment up at mooloolooba. Oh well.
The rest of Sunday was chilling out, we went back to the dance floor for a while, watching some of the morning set and eventually Mitchell awoke and came to hang out. We collected Skitzo and went to the creek for a potter around in the water, where I found the comfiest creek-couch ever. I was sitting on a rock with my legs/lower body submerged in the cool creek water, and there was another rock behind me in the perfect spot to make a back-rest.
After that, it was more food, chilling out for a while, then packup time. Too easy! Then we went home. A rather uneventful drive back, me stopping overnight where my parents were at Mooloolooba to sleep for 17 hours or so 🙂
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