Sydney times

Monday, April 23, 2007

St Albans Folk Festival

St Albans is nestled in amongst the rolling hills just west of Gosford. It's about a two hour drive from Sydney, but has a remoteness about it that I haven't experienced anywhere else of similar proximity to this huge city. The Blueys, south coast, central coast all have a distinctly suburban feel to them, more so each year. St Albans, by contrast, feels like a frontier town, an isolated outpost far from civilisation. In reality it's only about 20km from Wiseman's Ferry, but no matter. The dirt roads, cosy gallery cafes and lilting wooden shacks lend it a timelessness that I haven't really seen since Dawson City in Canada's Yukon. And I miss Dawson. So it was very exciting :)

There were a bunch of us there, all setting up camp, donning our wristbands and preparing to act as devoted groupies for Chris Gillespie and the Wandering Hands. Well, devoted if that means we watched all their gigs. All two of them. And I helped carry the effects box thing to the first one. And I actively supported the bands they liked, then I drank beer and sang with them. That's devotion eh? But seriously, I was there to watch these guys do their thing and they were awesome. They've just launched a new EP called Free To Roam, and there are some great tracks on it.

St Albans Folk Festival is a relatively small one, spread over about four venues in the town including the current church, an abandoned church and a specially erected marquee. The atmosphere is incredibly relaxed, people spilling out of venues onto the road drinking tea, playing the fiddle and the guitar beside the road, outside the tent. Artists have no pretensions about joining the crowd to watch artists they enjoy, or lining up in the coffee queue. Aswell as the performances, there are many workshops throughout the day, from Pidgin Singing to Harmonica, Guitar and Songwriting. I went to a few, and it was just so great to get involved, play some tunes. Oh, the warm glow of playing 'Oh Susanna' on the harmonica with a dozen other learners. Reedy, screechy harp never sounded sooooo gooooooood :)

The Settler's Arms on main street is one of the oldest pubs in Australia, one of those old gems with hand chipped sandstone blocks, low ceilings and signs saying '5 shillings per room', and 'No more than five people per bed'. It was full day and night with people dancing, singing, drinking and jamming. Yep, St Albans was GREAT>especially bush poetry breakfast at 8am, woot!

St Albans Folk Festival

Chris Gillespie and the Wandering Hands

Umbrellas watching the show

Gorgeous Main street St Albans

The Marquee at night

Jammin into the new day

Friday, April 20, 2007

Nowra Bomaderry

Nowra is an absolute gem of a place to climb. Somehow it's avoided being classed in the same league as the Blue Mountains (at least for those new to the sport), but I don't know how! With hundreds of great routes over several crags, mainly well bolted (very conservatively!) with shiny new rings, it's a sport climber's dream . . .

Possibly the coolest thing about climbing in Nowra, disregarding the quality sandstone, fun featured walls and classic moves, is the camping. We camped out at a place called the Ski Park (or something like that), which caters to all the water skiers and wakeboarders who come down to play on the the Shoalhaven River. We camped right on the banks, and in the morning we jumped in our canoes and paddled over to the crag on the other side of the river. No joke! It was very cool. And apparently winter is the season for Nowra, so we've got several months of Nowra joy ahead of us :)

Stu pushing it on Pale Yellow Underwear 24

Ben on Mosquito Slap, 21

Stu belaying under the amazing upside down tree :)

Ben still cruising up that stunning line at sunset

The National Folk Festival

To anyone lamenting the loss of the Blues and Roots fest to the ignominy of pop, fear not ;P

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The main marketplace

Guitar Sessions

Tibetan Sand Mandala. Living one aspect of their philosophy - the impermanence of all things - these monks spent three days creating an intricate Mandala out of coloured grains of sand, and then swept it away.

The flags at dusk

There's almost nothing better than a fire in a bin and a cup of hot mulled wine on a Canberra night.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Kanangra-Boyd National Park

Last weekend we decided to head out to Kanangra-Boyd National Park for a bit of a camping hiking adventure. Turns out we weren't the only ones - the cute little campsite (equipped with drop toilets and a big wooden shelter with tables, benches and a big fireplace) was pretty busy! - which is completely understandable - Kanangra is just breathtaking.

Some of the most spectacular scenery to be found in the Blueys I reckon. You get a real sense of wilderness, isolation, and the vastness of our land up here. At 1300m it's one of the high points of Australia, and you really get that sense of alpine spareness - some of the walking on the plateau is above the treeline! And they get their share of snow in winter :) The area is home to the famous Kanangra Main canyon, a 12 hour epic that I'm really keen to do, having seen the grandeur of the valley. Just amazing.

It's about 30kms drive along an unpaved road from the quaint tourist town of Jenolan Caves (eerily reminiscent of an abandoned alpine ski village) to get to Kanangra. It took us about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to drive there from Katoomba in the evening. The road is pretty treacherous, full of hairpin bends, narrow 'lanes', steep drop offs and some of the most dense fog I've driven in. Just wanted to say TAKE CARE - one of the cars we drove out with was involved in a head on collision on the way out. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but we did experience the scary isolation of the region as we waited hours for ambos and helis, which were then held down by fog. Even having heard about the accident further along the road, people were hooning along the road in dark fog, skidding to a stop at the scene. Crazy!

We spent most of the drive home cruising at about 50km/hr in heavy rain and amazing thick fog. After stopping at Jenolan Caves desperate for food and finding everything shut, we came across this, the best pit-stop ever. This little restaurant somewhere between JC and Mt Vic is open only on the weekends. It's owned by an Austrian couple who live in Marrickville, but come up to their mountain hideaway each weekend to make hearty Austrian schnitzel, goulash and of course good ole burgers and fish'n'chips to wayward travellers. We'd missed lunch and had spent the past few hours really concerned about the people in the car accident, so arriving at this cosy little roadhouse was like a surreal dream. Inside it was warm, the soft glow of old English comedy drifted from a box. The room was filled with clutter. Felt hats sat atop hatstands. Alcohol paraphernalia and Royal Family trees covered every wall space. Records and wine bottles and scupltures and ornaments and caps and cards, the room was a museum. The vienna coffee was made with 'tia maria' blend coffee beans from the supermarket in Marrickville. The burger had an egg, beetroot, pineapple and all the salads. It was just about as much comfort as we could handle. If you're in the area, check this place out - it's something else!

Bardens Lookout, Blue Mountains

A few months ago when I last climbed here, looking out over the rolling fields was like looking over a wasteland. It was brown and brittle, very much in the throes of a nasty drought. It was a wonderful suprise to arrive after almost two weeks of steady rain to see the countryside looking in every way like quaint English farmland, dotted with cosy thatch roofed cottages, no less :) It was really incredible to see the difference just a couple of weeks of rain can make to some of the dry country of the world.