Things that amuse us

* Bom Bom - a town just out of Grafton, NSW, 10 January 2006
* Fat Duck Rd - in Woombah Woods, NSW, 10 January 2006
* The Slab of Zen - at Woombah Woods Caravan Park, NSW, 10 January 2006
* Bald Nob - outside Glen Innes, NSW, 12 January 2006
* Guyra "Lamb and Potato Festival" - Guyra, NSW, 15 January 2006
* Mother of Ducks Lagoon - Guyra, NSW, 15 January 2006
* Cottan-Bimbang National Park - half an hour west of Port Macquarie, 20 January 2006
* Sudden Comfort Motel - near Nambucca Heads, NSW, 23 January 2006
* Lotza Rocks - outside Coffs Harbour, NSW, 23 January 2006

Australia really is a strange and very funny place to travel. This is just a small selection of things that have amused us - watch for updates. i was giggling just typing them in - fat duck road is definitely my favourite so far.

We love our country.

Liv

p.s. look for photos added to the posts in early feb - this will be the first time i'll be able to access the internet using my laptop. looking forward to hearing from you all on the site when i check in again then. Much love and sweet sugary moonbeams to all.

Still in Coffs Harbour

24 January 2006 8:30am

Last night was a bit difficult for both of us. we got some bad new that i won't share here. it made us both think of bigger things than just being moody and silly. a difficult evening, but a very positive one in a lot of ways because it made us think and talk about things we're not often so open and honest about.

9am

i don't think i'm a very good tourist - i'm finding it very hard to get excited about leaving the hostel today. we're going to a butterfly house, and art galleries, and the beach. we'll see how much of that actually eventuates...

8:32pm

Whew! for the first time in a couple of weeks, we're up-to-date! hurrah! well, except for the photos, the calendar, and lots of other things we want to put on here but that's ok.

overall, we've had an awesome couple of weeks. tomorrow we're heading to bellingen to stay a couple of nights with my parents - they shouted us accommodation in a cabin in a caravan park there, as long as we look after the dog (yeah, like that's a chore...) so anyway, we won't be able to update the site again until we get to sydney on 1st Feb, but we'd love to hear from all of you - if you're checking the site (with more than 200 hits in 2 weeks, someone out there must be checking in) leave us messages on the guest book or comments - it helps us stay in touch with everyone we miss so much already.

by the way, we really sparked up when we got to the butterfly house today - there's something particularly special about being covered in butterflies. strongly recommended as a good remedy for a wounded psyche (or simply a crabby mood).

take care all

Liv

Coffs Harbour

23 January 2006 10:15am Day 15

Starting my second journal already

6:54pm

well, that was an impressively large entry earlier. I've been tired and moody the last couple of days, so staying out of touch was not a bad thing. liz was moody too, so i'm impressed that we didn't argue. we're currently in a backpackers in coffs harbour, and we've had a couple of beers chatting to people. it's one of the more expensive hostels ($27 each/ night) but definitely a must for the budget traveller. very clean, groovy communal areas, and some seriously hot backpackers. well done us, i say.

We're starting to realise that we really need to stop spending money - we've well and truly outdone our budgets - no more spending till melbourne when we can actually make some money. we've come up with a few money making schemes (i'm good with them) and some of them are really good ideas. i have lots of schemes i'm working on, but i'll let you know about them in detail as i get them sorted. one of them involves running workshops around the country as an ot, which is probably the most realistic at this stage... i'm really excited about it so be sure you'll hear lots more about it as it eventuates.

Timbertown

22 January 2006 12:30pm

We're in Timbertown, Wauchope. It's a recreation of an old colonial town thing.

I felt this was a very sad place. To us, the animals all look devastated. the ponies don't even look at you. the seemingly emaciated calf had no grass to eat, and looked desperate for attention. we've seen a lot of beautiful old things on our trip, but (with the exception of Gravesend) I've not been to a place that seemed to sad and lonely - like a tired old man who's waiting to die, and who's irritating relatives keep trying to cheer him up.

i did however take what i think is the best photo i've ever taken of liz with a beautiful sad-looking horse. i'll post it as soon as i can access the internet with my own computer, not at an internet cafe or backpackers.

Liv

p.s. all these animals may have actually been well cared for, we don't really know what goes on behind the scenes, but to us it was a very sad and lonely place.

Tamworth Country Music Festival (aaaaaargh!)

21 January 2006 8:35pm

At an italian restaurant in Port Macquarie. I'm exhausted. Liz and i both hit breaking point and decided we needed a chill out day with no touring around at all. just a day free of overstimulation. it kind of worked for me - i did get away for a while, went shopping for camp supplies, drank coffee in the rainforest, slept in the sun and walked on the beach. my energy is still very low, but i should be able to get a good sleep. tomorrow we've planned lot of touristy stuff to compensate for the day off, but we also put a movie marathon on the list of things to do, so that should be good.

i haven't mentioned Peter and Sandy's awesome B and B, probably because gushing requires so much mental energy, but i know it's important, so here goes.

the retreat at froog-moore park www.froogmoorepark.com.au is the B and B to end all B and Bs. Liz and i have realised that B and Bs all over the world are now ruined for us. each room has its own theme, and the house is really kooky. if you sit in the spa at night, you share your experience with hundreds of glowing fish all over the walls.

If you feel like a seriously kinky weekend in Tamworth, book into the dungeon. My favourite parts of that room were the padded wall (for comfort and insulation of sound), the handcuffs on another wall (hidden behind a totally see-through curtain) and the whip on the bed. kinky but classy. very nice.

liz and i stayed in the moroccan suite - more luxury, less kinky. i still haven't stopeed dreaming about the food (Sandy you rock!)

we left there feeling amazing, but after a couple of hours at the Tamworth Music Festival (please, lord, make it stop! the flashbacks - i see it everywhere...) and a 5 hour drive through terrifying, twisting mountain roads in the pouring rain, getting lost (the man from the caravan park gave us totally the wrong directions "turn left 100m after the (non-existant) bridge". we checked there was no bridge - then he got angry with us when we called to say we were lost - we arrived, finally, just as he was closing the office) so on arrival we were somewhat less than relaxed. we needed today off badly. i need tomorrow off too, but no such luck - there's touristing to do. A recreation of an old timber mill town thing, camel rides, art galleries, coffee, movies - holidays are tough work!

Port Macquarie

21 January 2006 8:35pm

At an italian restaurant in Port Macquarie. I'm exhausted. liz and i both hit breaking point and decided we needed a chill out day with no touring around at all. just a day free of overstimulation. it kind of worked for me - i did get away for a while, went shopping for camping supplies and drank coffee in the rainforest, and slept in the sun, and walked on the beach., my energy is still very low, but i should be able to get a good sleep. tomorrow we've planned lots of touristy stuff to compensate for the day off, but we also put a movie marathon on the list of things to do, so that should be good.

Tamworth Country Music Festival

19 January 2006 8am-ish

Our last morning at Jerb and Simone's. By last night, liz and i really were taking over everything and making it our own. we both have a real tendency to do that, no matter where we go. we've been madly trying to finish the nanna rug we're making for Jerb and Simone - all the squares are done, and most of the sewing, but it's still in a few pieces. it will be interesting to see whether we can discipline ourselves to actually do it. if so, we'll need to start soon, and i'll have to stop procrastinating, wake liz, make her tea, listen to her moan, wait for her to have at least 9 ciggie breaks, and get started.

Whew! a full day's work before 9am.

9pm-ish (we did finish the rug - photos to come when i can use my own computer to access the internet)

In a pub. In Tamworth. During the country music festival. interesting. a lot of cowboys. few women so far. managed to tip over both liz and my drinks (i'd had 2 sips). consoled myself by gazing at the guy who came to clean it up. mmmm... worth having to buy another beer.

Still still in armidale

18 January 2006

it is so easy to call Jerb and Simone's place home - we started using that word for it on about the second day we were here. yesterday we went to this awesome chapel in Gostwyck - it was covered in vines, and very peaceful and gorgeous. we spent quite a while there drawing and taking silly photos of ourselves in our tiaras - yes, of course we brought them with us.

but Ryan - we have a problem! your funky helicopter melted in the heat of the car! there was nothing we could do about it at the time, but we've worked out a way to perform helicopter first aid (a hairdryer, two sticks, and lots of gaffa tape should do it). I can't post photos today because i'm using a public computer, not my laptop, but as soon as i can i'll send you a pic or two with it.

we'll keep you updated on its progress, but if this is what happens by day 10, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the year. we're going to cover it in superglue and maybe we'll need to have photos with bits of helicopter instead of the whole thing. Even melted though, it's still very cooc. according to liz, it's now truly a surrealist decomposing structure.

2:15pm

The Red Lion Pub, Glencoe (Dead animals on the walls is the only drawback to this place - otherwise it's very cute, and actually had vegetarian food on offer).

Country op-shops rock. we bought an awesome cardigan, groovy handbag, butterfly tea towel, pillow case and 4 fantastic knitting/crochet patterns - including a whole book of hot pants patterns (my favourite being the pair with crocheted suspenders) all for $4.80. Total. That's bananas.

still in armidale

18 January 2006

Day 4 at Jerb and Simone's place - we leave tomorrow for Tamworth. The last couple of days have been fantastic. i've been more chilled out than i can remember in my life over the last few days (unfortunately my body went "screw you bitch, you're going to pay for all the stress you've put me under all these years" and i'm exhausted, but mentally i feel great.)

Actually it's interesting that i feel so chilled because the last few days i've been doing a lot of facing my fears type stuff. i've been scrambling over lots of granite boulders (tim and milo would be so proud!), and being liz's snake watch on bushwalks where she was wearing open shoes, sleeping with spiders in the middle of snake country, and just being out in the middle of nowhere. it's funny, i've done all this stuff before, but it always felt forced. this feels completely natural.

the castle, moree and armidale

16 January 2006 8:30am-ish

In an unusual turn of events for me, i haven't found time to write in days. so much amazing stuff has happened. i'll try to write this in chronological order.

lets start with kings plains castle. it really was a real castle. liz and i spent 24 hours feeling like we'd walked into a Pride and Prejudice manor house, complete with everything we could ask for in an evening of indulgence. Bathtubs with feet. Private balconies. A full cake of soap each. People serving you food and wine and port. Magnificent grounds (Liz and I took over 400 photos in less than 24 hours...) I'm finding it hard to gush enough about how awesome it was. Well, the one draw-back for liz was that she creeped herself out thinking the place was haunted, but i slept better than i have in many months. Check out the website

http://www.kingsplainscastle.gleninnes.biz/kpchtml/accom.html

One of the cool things about our stay were the people who were also staying there. There were 8 guests in total (the other 6 were couples from Moree, Lennox Heads and Tamworth). We got lots of great tips for places to stay and things to do, and they were just great company. liz and i have been really enjoying the fact that in 6 days we've only spoken to one person our age - the bartender at the Grafton Crown Hotel. Seems like not a lot of tourists our age come out this way.

My favourite part of the castle was the woman who ran it. colleen was lovely, although she did ask me whether salmon and bacon were appropriate options for a vegetarian (which amused me greatly, and has now turned into one of our most prevalent location jokes. mmmn, bacon...)

Ok, enough gushing about the castle.

One of the cool tips we got was about the Moree hot springs. We left the castle Sat morning and drove towards Moree (stopping every 500m to pick more wild flowers or take photos - it was a LONG trip). Actually we took a detour to Gwydir olives and went a bit nuts there. we drove into Moree with no idea where we could stay, and were horrified. i think we really turned into princesses, but we refused to pay $55 to stay in a filthy, tiny, smelly pub full of drunken yobbos, no air con, and no vegetarian food ("we can do you a salad").

It felt like something had died in there. we drove from place to place searching for something decent (by the way, if you're coming to Moree, don't be fooled by the name - Moree Health Resort and Hot Springs was nothing but a concrete jungle of boxy units with no windows. there was no grass, no plants - nothing would live there. always a good sign to get back in the car and drive away as fast as possible.)

Eventually we found an awesome place - a caravan park on the outskirts of town with its own hot springs pools (at one point we had them to ourselves for half an hour, which suited our cravings for luxury. check out the photo of Liz luxuriating). We stayed in an airconditioned cabin with stove, fridge, tv, microwave etc with a room each for $31 each. that's my kind of budget accommodation. if you're interested in moree hot springs, it was called Gwydir Carapark and Thermal Pools.

After leaving Moree (and driving back through a terrifying ghost town, aptly named Gravesend - i found myself seriously speeding to get out of there) we drove about 3.5 hours to armidale to stay with Jerb and Simone, who both have 3 or 4 days off work to hang out with us.

i'm chilling with a cup of tea on their little front deck, watching a cow eat grass, and enjoying the breeze, the sound of birds, the wind rustling through the trees, and NOTHING ELSE! We're in the middle of nowhere, and it's just beautiful. I'm not even scared of the snakes and spiders here. i shared my room with a big huntsman last night, and still slept really well. Ok, so the spider and i made a deal that she would stay on the top half of the room, and i would stay on the bottom, and we'd both be fine, but still i shared my room with a spider and wasn't even scared (mum and dad, aren't you proud? your little girl is growing up). that was actually a big achievement for me. i've chilled out so much in a week it's scary.

ok, i'm going a bit out of chronological order now, because i saved the best for last - the space age toilet we found in moree. to get in, you press a button and the door slides open. then you press another button inside to close the door, and soothing piano music starts ("what the world needs now is love sweet love"). to get paper, you press a button and it measures out a piece for you. the toilet flushes automatically when you wash your hands - which you do my placing your hands under 3 special sensors (soap water and air - the soap one sounds like really bad diarrhoea, it's great!). the music stops when you press the button to open the door, then the toilet self cleans. my favourite bit of all was the fact that, to avoid loiterers, if you're there over 10 minutes, the door opens automatically and an alarm sounds. bad luck if you're really constipated but how cool is that?

Kings Plains Castle

Friday 13th January 2006 (Black Friday - Castle Day)

Last night it poured. And poured. We stayed relatively dry, but neither of us slept much. i was a big crabby poo all morning till we went gem fossicking again. this stuff is seriously addictive. we also went to a winery (which we found while looking for balancing rock to complete Tim's challenge - hope we got it right tim) and bought lots of organic wine for practically nothing. we're now at the celtic standing stones in Glen Innes. I'm not sure why anyone thought it was a good idea to recreate stonehenge in Glen Innes of all places, but apparently someone did. there's a funnly little (hugely expensive) celtic shop. interestingl, the celtic shop sells iced chai. as soon as we've had our soffees we're heading to the castle - the idea of a warm shower is spurring me on. we've decided we're not going to deny ourselves anything this evening, just thoroughle enjoy every moment of decadence. mmm, decadence.

Thought for the moment:
* There are few things more irritating (on a "this SO doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things" frame of reference) than really wnting a coffee, and really looking forward to it, and waiting a REALLY long time, and it comes out, and it looks great, and you take a sip, and it's BURNT.

Dammit.

Craigieburn Tourist Park

12 January 2006

Saying goodbye to the Crown Hotel. As Liz says, it's easy to get attached to this place - magnificent river views, awesome cheap food, very cheap beer, comfy beds, clean everything - and they make your bed and give you a clean towel and soap each day! All this for $20 each. Can't fault it. Liz and I have decided we need to develop our own budget travellers guide to Australia and put it on the website - watch out for it, as soon as we work out how to do it, it will be here.

Our crochet is interesting but looks great. yesterday i made 5 squares in the time Liz made 1. i get the impression this is going to be a very one-sided rug.

(Around 6pm-ish. wouldn't really have a clue. sense of time diminishing rapidly...)

At Craigieburn Tourist Park. Another must for the budget traveller. weve been wandering the grounds and there's beautiful boulders surrounded by fields of white daisies. i'm sitting on a boulder near a creek as i write. there has been thunder in the distance for about 4 hours now. i sincerely hope it's all bark and no bite given we're finally camping. the campsite itself is gorgeous - a ring of boulders and big shady trees. an unfortunate drawback is the carpet of dead christmas beetles. they're everywhere. i don't understand it. you practically can't put your foot down without stepping on one. i rolled up the door of my tent for half an hour earlier today, and when i would it down, there was a dead beetle in it.

the breeze is picking up now. a nice reprieve from gem fossicking in the sun, which is how we spent our afternoon. we got an awesome haul - lots of pretty things. we had so much fun we're going back tomorrow.

this morning we drove to Glen Innes, and got very excited about the signs saying "hanging rock" but it turned out to be just a property called hanging rock, not the real thing. we found a place on the map of Victoria that says hanging rock. does anyone know if that's the real one? Anyway, we're going to balancing rock tomorrow to fulfil tim's challenge, so we'll get to see some sort of rock at least.

Still in Grafton

11 January 2006 1:53pm

In the Grafton Regional Gallery Cafe. We haven't even looked at the gallery yet, just walked in and ordered coffees. well, i'm sitting drinking my coffee, in my usual languid cafe-nymph manner, while Liz maniacally photographs everything. Actually, now she's gone to look at paintings somewhere.

We checked the internet this morning for accommodation in Glen Innes, and found a campsite and a castle. we're waiting on a call back from the castle people - yes, it's a ridiculous splurge, but how often do you get to stay in a castle?

This morning I've been teaching Liz to crochet. Yesterday we bought the latest book of Vogue knitting patterns. what a strange thing - Vogue knitting patterns. they're fabulous but so far we haven't been able to find any suitable yarns (we don't just intuitively travel, we intuitively knit, too.) so until we find fabulous yarns, we're making nanna rugs. i love nanna rugs.

Iluka and Grafton

10 January 2006 9am-ish

We're in Bundjalung National Park. This morning was all blue skies and white fluffy clouds, so we got excited about bush walking and drove here. we got out, organised our pack, put on insect repellant, and it started bloody raining. so now we're hanging out at some undercover picnic tables, waiting for the weather to clear. the drive here was so absolutely gorgeous so we really want to do this walk. much as liz and i both love bushwalking, the ulterior motive here is to make sure we stay fit. we made a commitment to ourselves that we would be the sort of travellers who come back fit, not the sort who come back 3 times their size. i've worked too bloody hard to let that happen - but day 1 didn't really bode well. we spent the whole day eating, drinking, napping, and "ooh-ing" and "aal-ing" as we drove along. we did walk for over half an hour though around Maclean. A bit of a pissy, half-arsed effort, sure, but at least something.

11:55am

Well, we did it, and enjoyed it thoroughly. we walked about 6km, most of it in pouring rain, and i now have blisters on the inside of my toes. i knew i should have cut my toenails.

one of the things i think i'm really going to enjoy about this trip is camp tea. it just tasted so good after it's been brewed in a billy on a camp stove, and flavoured with UHT milk, drunk from a melamine mug. i guess it probably has something to do with the effort involved. when you have to work this hard for a cup of tea, it tastes bloody good, dammit!

Another thing i'm enjoying is being able to wear whatever i like, without feeling like i have to conform to any sort of code.

i'm winding down, but it's taking some time to really let myself start to chill out.

i'm still waking in the middle of the night every night, then tossing and turning till morning. it started just after woodford, and i'm beginning to get a little sick of it. the strange thing is at the time there's nothing racing around my head. i'm not worrying or fretting about anything at all. i feel emotionally relatively settled at the moment - or at least i thought so. i did have that weird episode of fear yesterday about drawing. ok, maybe i'm hiding something from myself.

liz and i are already quickly settling into a routing - we've totally reorganised most of our stuff to make it more easily accessible, and we're just taking things as they come.

5:40pm-ish

ficus viven = giant fig thing in grafton. very cool.

8:20pm

we're sitting on a deck, drinking Coopers Pale Ale ($3.50 schooners) and just watched 20 million fruit bats fly past. i'm serious. 20 million. Apparently they do this every day. they live on some island in the middle of the river and fly towards Coffs Harbour in search of fruit, then fly back. the sky was black with bats. Black, i tells ya.

Right. Now i'm on a mission to see if they'll sell us kiddies serves of ice cream. getting our priorities straight.

Hooray! ice cream with chocolate topping on the way! ok, we're going to have to triple our exercise...

Woombah Woods and Grafton

9 Jan 2006
sometime around lunch-ish - don't know. couldn't be arsed getting up and finding out.

we finally really left this morning. we drove south a few hours to Woombah Woods Caravan Park - a definite must for the budget traveller. for $25each we have a cabin that would sleep 6, with a toilet, fridge, tv, microwave and outdoor entertaining area. yes, we know we said we were going to camp, but given it has been raining for days, we decided that wasn't a good idea. day one and we're already struggling with the whole roughing it thing.

4pm-ish. The Slab of Zen.

Fear is a strange thing. i found this awesome old stone table in the middle of nowhere in the bush, but with a view of farms and hills and puffy white cloud-like trees (a beautiful, peaceful place). to get here ihad to swallow my fear of snakes and spiders (all the snakes were sticks, and the cobweb was my own hair...) but it was too special a place not to come here. i really wanted to come here to draw, so i go my art bag, made myself a coffee, and forced myself to trek across country to this spot. i sat on the stone slab (most comfortable stone slab in the world, highly recommended for the stone slab connoiseur), picked up my pencil, and promptly convinced myself i wasn't really able to draw anyway, and put it away again. i don't seem to fear writing, that flows from me like vomit from a drunken leonian (in technicolour!) - perhaps because i was "taught" art and not writing, the same way i was "taught" piano but not singing, so i feel like i can sing anything, while i struggle to see myself as anything but incompetent on the piano.

well, this trip for me is about facing fears and experiencing everything i can, so drawing here i come.

(a little while later)

interestingly enough, i did end up drawing something - a tiny little scared, hidden grass dryad.
I like her.

Send us your tiara photos

As many of you would know, we have a new years tradition which involves frocking up and getting as many people as possible to wear gorgeous tiaras, particularly on stage, if they're performers. the tiara monster gets bigger every year, and this year it was awesome, but we have a problem - we really want to put the photos on our website, but we're missing some! all our gorgeous princesses were too beautiful to be forgotten, so we truly need to immortalise everyone. when this tradition really spreads, you can say "we were there - look, here's the evidence. we knew liz and liv BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS, and we were part of the tiara tradition almost FROM THE BEGINNING, hurrah." We know that these shots really aren't that great, and that other people have much much better photos (like the version of that first photo where you can actually see scotty's head), but we refuse to delete these till the others have arrived in our inbox.

send us your photos to fisher_olivia@hotmail.com

we really want to get at least one shot of every tiara-wearing person we can. as soon as we receive enough we'll put them into a gallery. thanks gorgeous people

liz and liv

helicopters rock!

Liv's ex-flatmate ryan makes helicopters for a living, and after months of harassment, he gave one to us both for our travels, a model which we promptly painted green and pink with purple polkadots.

enjoy its journey - we'll be having lots of fun with it as we go.

if you're wondering about this photo, it was still wet, and hanging on a clothes line to dry.

See ya suckers!

right. we're actually leaving tomorrow we think. we haven't yet decided where we're going (that includes tomorrow - we've booked nothing, we've planned nothing, we're trusting in the kindness of strangers. We're screwed!). At present it's raining pretty heavily, and apparently a lot of the roads are at risk of flooding, so we may be having adventures before we had realised we would. what happened to easing into things? i think the people who have been speaking to us recently here are a little concerned about the fact that we seem so anti-planning and so unconcerned about anything that could go wrong. hey, we have more adventures this way. intuitive travelling is the new black, didn't you know?

before we leave liz has a few messages, since i've been hogging the website so far....

Liz says:

thank you to kat and all the sunnie coast friends who came to say goodbye on friday night. i want to say bye again to my parents in the hope that they actually get onto the website! a huge thanks to boo for driving me down to ocean shores. a big reminder to everyone about boo's going away party on feb 24, which also happens to be a birthday celebration......am finally starting to get excited about going, got nothing planned just relying on instincts as per usual!

right. serious stuff over.

the plan is to be in armidale on the 15th january, and timmy, we accept your armidale challenge. the sydney one is still in the planning stages... for everyone else, check the guest book. and feel free to set us more (achievable) challenges at any time.

we love you all

liz and liv

The overflowing cup

I want to be serious for a moment.

In the last week or so, we've been overwhelmed by the love and kindness shown to us by our beautiful friends and families.

They say you know who your true friends are when you travel. What I've realised is that Liz and I have a huge group of exceptional true friends.

Thank you to those people who've offered us their homes, who are flying to meet us in random places arounds Aus, the ones who go out of their way to do beautiful little things for us, like meet me for coffee to give me a beautiful protection amulet (thanks guys, I'm having it turned into a necklace this week and I'll email you photos), and the people who gave us big hugs and told us they love us and wish us well.

Thanks even to all those bastards who have insisted on discussing wolf creek at every possible opportunity (I'm still trying to find the positive in that, but surely there must be one...)

It seems strange to me that we wait until we're parting to tell people how much we love them. To all our friends, old and new, close and not yet as close as we'd like, we love you all, and feel so blessed to have such beautiful people in our lives.

Thank you

Liv

Woodforditis

The following entries have been written over the last week or so, but as we've had no access to the internet in that time, you're getting them all at once. Liz and I have just come home from the Woodford Folk Festival, and she is currently at her house madly packing her gear into storage, while I chill in Ocean Shores, trying to learn how to run a website thing. This is my project for the next 2 months while I'm not working - learning how to make the coolest website in the world. Wish me luck - i'm going to need it.

Liv

24 December 2005 (2:40pm)

If my mind was light, the last few weeks would have been a raver's flashing neon paradise. My thoughts have been tumbling over each other like a flea circus after far too many tiny flea sized coffees.

The good news is, though, that I'm finally starting to chill out, and I reckon in a couple more days the fleas in my skull will be lying in hammocks, ordering singapore slings, and debating the relative merits of cotton versus nylon in hammock construction, which is, of course, one of the most pressing questions plaguing flea-kind at the present time. Hey, it's no sillier than some of the questions WE waste our time over (Coke v. Pepsi? Seriously!)

Anyway, yesterday was my last day of work, and it finally really struck me as i walked out of the clinic doors for the last time (my arms laden with presents, heading to my recently de-toilet papered car) just how much my work has really meant to me, and for a few minutes I remember feeling totally lost and afraid.

That lasted until the moment I remembered why I was leaving, and I did a little happy dance, but the truth is, I've had an exceptional lifestyle for a long time, and have been amazingly blessed. Onwards to new blessings, hurrah!


26 December 2005 (9:24pm)

Woodford - setting up day

An interesting day. We're camping with Liz and I, Belinda and Ivan, Jerb, Beth and Angelina, and Ryan. Jerb, Liz and I all started work today (which means hours and hours and hours of meetings). I'm the stage manager of the Chai tent, Jerb is stage manager of the Lyceum tent, and Liz is a venue manager who visits us all. My favourite part of the day was realising that I get as much free chai as I can drink, and have a communications book. I'm the only stage manager at the chai tent, and they gave me a communications book. What's with that?


27 December 2005 (8:30am)

Just spent an hour setting up the Chai Tent stage. My stage. The way I want it. He He. I'm allowing myself one power trip, then getting over it and chilling out.


28 December 2005 (6:15am)

I've tried to find the time to sit and write, and thus far have not been particularly successful. Too many people to talk to. This is why I find I can't live my life behind the lens of a camera - I don't even think to take photos, I'm too busy living the experience. Writing works for me because I can sit back afterwards, chill, and re-experience as I write. Lucky I have Liz to look after the photo side of things.

(12:20pm)

How to explain the experiences of the first few days of Woodford? For those of you who've been here, you'll know the whole story without being told. You were probably there with us through most of it.

For those of you who don't know, it's a week of magnificent extremes. I set a record yesterday - I drank about 5 litres of water, and only peed twice. THAT'S HOW MUCH YOU SWEAT! It's too hot to sleep. It's too hot to eat. At one point I went into my tent in the middle of the day to get something, and the floor was so hot it scorched my feet. It's too hot to move. If you really get lucky and find yourself up close to the stages during gigs, you may be cooled by the rain of sweat which pours from the performer's magnificent bodies.

Think that's revolting? Well, the only place you can actually get sleep is on the communal beds in the Green Room. Highly recommended if you don't have problems lying in pools of other people's sweat.

I'm having issues with the sun at the moment.

And then there's the dust. The dust gets everywhere. Your snot is black - but very dry, because your body is too dehydrated to waste precious water on wet snot. No, it would rather use that to ensure that your body is a perpetually glistening lychee. A sticky, dust covered lychee. But dehydrated, so I guess it's more like a lychee prune. Can you get lychee prunes? I'd like to try one. Preferably not a dust covered one. I've had enough dust for today thank you. It's truly a dieters paradise of dust.

I do believe the heat is affecting my mind.

The rain hasn't started yet, but rest assured that when it does, I'll write, complaining about the mud, and the stench of rotting grass, compacted into the mud by hundreds of fairy-dancing hippies. So, I hope that helps to put things in perspectie. All those pictures on TV of drug-fucked hippies the commercial news programs seem to show are probably of people who aren't using drugs, they're merely delusional from heat exhaustion and sleep deprivation.


30 December 2005 (5:15pm)

Meet Herbert the kamikaze spider. Herbert is the pet spider of the chai tent. A huntsman, just smaller than the size of my palm. Herbert is an attack spider. He crawls up to the top of the tent, absails down to the ground, all legs spread out for aerodynamic and balancing purposes, then runs directly at people's feet. We jump over him and he runs away - but not for long. He has also been seen on a number of occasions lurking around water jugs, waiting for unsuspecting performers. He prefers to hang just below the tap. I've seen him most days of the festival - and on the days I didn't see him in person, I found the tell-tale single strand of spider web from the roof to the ground, and knew he'd found another victim. At present he's in hiding again. I'm guessing he's waiting until it's cooler to come out and start playing games. A spider with personality.


1 January 2006

Yesterday was tiara day. That's what we're calling it at least. Basically it's a tradition started a few years ago, when people started frocking up and wearing tiaras to celebrate new years eve. Each year it grows bigger and bigger. This year in total we had nearly 40 people running around in tiaras, in woodford, brisbane and noosa - we have heaps of photos, and as soon as we work out how to put a gallery on the website, we're going to post them all here. Those of you who have really good photos of people in tiaras, please email them to us at fisher_olivia@hotmail.com so we can put them here too. We got some great shots of people performing in tiaras like kate miller-heidke's band, emma dean and james o'brien. Next year, the aim is to have even more of our friends prancing around like princesses - and steve, yes, we're going to make you a special elastic backed tiara, so you have no more excuses! I don't care if you're performing at the falls festival, you're still expected to wear one. It made everyone very easy to find all night - a six foor four man in a pink fluffy tiara telling everyone he's a princess tends to stand out (you looked fabulous, scotty). Thanks everyone for keeping our tradition alive.