Festivities and festivals

Hey, Happy New Year everyone (okay, both of you).
We brought in the New Year in the same old run-of-the-mill way—fireworks, champagne, a request played on (Albany) local radio, and harness racing (a.k.a. trotting). For those of you who know little or nothing about harness racing (which, I admit, was a category to which I belonged up until the last few hours of 2011—now, though, I am an expert on the subject) I can tell you that it is a bit like chariot racing but without the spikes in the wheels, or the armour, or Charlton Heston… there was however a Mr Whippy ice cream van. Basically a (not necessarily healthy looking) horse pulls a lightweight buggy which is occupied by a (not necessarily lightweight) driver. Indeed, the drivers come in all shapes, sizes, genders and ages. One of my big gambling successes (I recouped $2.20 from a $2.00 bet) came when an octogenarian skilfully steered an unlikely looking equine specimen from last to (short) second in the finishing straight. It was a really fun night but I decided against standing everyone in the bar a drink with my winnings from the last race of the evening… $1.90.
I should have pointed out (probably several paragraphs ago) that we were on our summer holidays over the New Year period—spending the best part of a week with our friends, Chris and Jackie, in Albany. I would like to say a big thank you to them for being fantastic hosts and excellent tour guides. They know where all the best beaches, walks, fish and chip shops and wineries are. There were a couple of things that we saw (which I don’t think they prearranged) that were of extra interest (and I’m not talking about the topless lady at Elephant rocks)… the most remarkable of which was seeing a man manoeuvre his seven foot pole through the Porongorup region. Truly, there was a bloke carrying the afore-mentioned accessory up a very steep incline to the top of Castle rock and believe me that is no mean feat. It has to be said that Castle rock looks even less like a Castle than Elephant rocks look like elephants, just in case you were wondering—I have to admit though that Dog Rock does indeed bare a passing resemblance to a dog’s head), I personally failed to make it to the wind ravaged summit of (not very) Castle(like) rock due to my lack of a backbone or fear of heights… whichever you prefer. I got most of the way up but failed to reach the top, as you will be able to see when you get the next set of photos (Wendy is editing them as we speak… you ought to see how good the 600 pics she has thrown away are). I should point out that, despite looks to the contrary, I’m not clinging desperately to the rock afraid to move. In fact what I was doing was bravely making sure that the 100 ton rock that has stood there for millennia didn’t fall on passers by. Wendy, the kids, the bloke with his enormous pole, and a couple of three year-olds all managed to squeeze past me in order to make their ascent.
George continued his climbing feats, later in the holiday, when he scaled the 60m tall (196.850 393 7 feet) Gloucester tree. By that time we were in Pemberton, which used to be a logging town, and still boasts some very tall trees, but these days relies more on tourism. We stayed in the, fantastic, Old Picture Theatre—the only surviving purpose built wooden cinema in WA, it has been converted into holiday flats… we weren’t kipping in the aisles or anything like that. It did still have a couple of the original wooden flip-up seats though—complete with the obligatory piece of chewing stuck to the underside. Whilst in Pemberton, we also turned our hand to trout fishing. I prepared for the activity by reading ‘Fly fishing’ by J.R.Hartley, watching ‘The Best of Fishomania’, readying my rod, and playing with my flies. All this preparation was unnecessary though because this was a trout farm where the pampered fish had spent their whole life being fed pellets, that bear more than just a passing resemblance to the substance we were supplied with as bait. You would expect that this would tilt the odds heavily in favour of the angler but there weren’t many fish being caught the morning we were there. That was until George discovered the ‘golden peg’, the spot by the inlet… he pulled three out in quick succession. Luckily, I managed to bag one (the biggest of the four… it was huge) with the last cast of the day otherwise we would never have heard the last of it from George.
We ended our holiday at the Southbound festival in Busselton. For those of you who know little or nothing about Southbound, I can tell you that it’s absolutely nothing like chariot racing. It is, in fact, a two day festival featuring music luminaries such as Arts Martial, Papa vs Pretty and Split Seconds. It was an over 18s event—so we took George and Harriet. It’s okay, don’t panic, your memory isn’t playing tricks on you the kids are still only 11 and 13 (although there are scary moments when they both seem a lot older—especially when Hattie gets dressed up to go somewhere). We were allowed to take them as long as we filled in a family registration form in which we agreed that they wouldn’t drink alcohol (which was a no-brainer… at those prices), wouldn’t take drugs (especially not the brown acid*) and that we would keep them with us at all times. This last point meant that when I went to the kebab van, they had to go to the kebab van, when I gawped at the ubiquitous ‘festival lesbians’ they had to gawp at the ubiquitous ‘festival lesbians’, and when I watched (Crowded House’s) Tim Finn they had to… ask if they could go to the other stage with their mother.
The only real restriction on us, because of the kids being under age, was that we weren’t allowed to camp… bummer. Instead we stayed at a Comfort Inn (ten minutes walk away from the festival site) and had to be content with a toilet that didn’t overflow, comfortable beds, an air conditioned room, and a shower with hot water (and a frog—but that’s a story for another day).
The musical highlights of the two days were: Beirut—complete with trumpets, accordion, trombone, French horn and Sousaphone; Arctic Monkeys—with Alex Turner trying to look like Elvis, but bearing a greater resemblance to Frankie Dettori; and Fleet Foxes—sublime. But the stand-out act, as voted for by 75% of the audience (okay, 75% of our household) was Aloe Blacc—beyond cool. Fantastic voice, brilliant band (more brass) and the backdrop of a beautiful sunset… magical.
Non-musical highlights included: Harriet discovering the beardy weirdie, trippy hippy section of the site… and getting hair braids as a result; George being afforded legendary status by many a festival goer; the exploding condom (don’t worry I’m not about to make an announcement); and a demonstration of ‘Festival Rule’ no. 35. For those of you who know little or nothing about ‘Festival Rule’ no. 35, I can tell you it states that: a woman is allowed to sit on someone’s shoulders (for one song only) but a man sat on someone’s shoulders is a legitimate target and is to be bombarded with bottles, cans, shoes and small people (it happened, believe me). Obviously, as this is a festival it is unlikely that the bottles (full as they are) still contain their original contents. I should point out that rule 35c (iii) states that a woman at the top of a triple decker is a fair-dinkum target. We saw one such woman, who was on her mobile phone at the time—George pointed out that it was probably the best way of getting a phone signal.
Before I go I should tell you that, during our holiday, we saw an advert announcing that all 234 episodes of ‘Flying Doctors’ are now available on DVD for the very first time. Strewth! I wonder how many episodes there are where the potentially disastrous situation is further complicated by ‘the water being up at Coopers Creek’. At least half, I reckon.
Your essential 5 tracks for this week are: The Trout (Die Forelle) by Franz Schubert; Cornerstone by Arctic Monkeys; Oh Well, That’s What You Get Falling In Love With A Cowboy by Lanie Lane; Hanging In The Wire by PJ Harvey; Green Lights by Aloe Blacc.

*Always good to get in a Woodstock reference—I never claimed that the blog was topical.