27 December, 2019
It was my first time going to this event. It has been around for quite a few years, or so we were told by some of the festival-goers.
Which was apparent as we drove from Brisbane, it was very well sign marked and very easy to get into the right place for ticket collection and day parking.
Everyone person working the festival that we talked to was very friendly and full of information.
We arrived at around 9:30am, which wasn’t too full of festival-goers, it took us around 10 minutes to get our parking space sorted and the wrist bands for entrance.
It was quite clearly marked where to catch the shuttle from parking to the festival and the buses came around often enough that we didn’t end up waiting for long.
Once we got off the shuttle we began wandering around and checking out the various shops and food stalls and got our bearings for the rest of the day. It wasn’t very busy until closer to noon.
We decided to stop in and watch an educational demonstration on how to extract your own essential oils from the various flora that grows around Australia.
It was a very good treat to see the process of extracting the essential oil from Lemon Myrtle leaves.
Something that we’ll probably try at some point, and which reminded me of some simple chemistry experiments I did when I was in high school, some decades in the past.
We then wandered around to enjoy a sound immersion session in the labyrinth which was very meditative and relaxing.
We didn’t mind that it was raining on us a little, it actually felt refreshing.
And then we ran into some friends of ours that we didn’t expect to see but were glad we did. The good part about this festival being so close to Brisbane is you might run into some people you know, and that was a great thing. So we wandered around with them for a while.
The food was absolutely amazing, the toughest choice for lunch was making a decision, since deciding on one place to eat meant you missed out on all the other options. So we ended up sharing a few different meals between us all which was very delightful.
When it began pouring out we ducked into a Cabaret performance, and it was quite well done, great vocals and very entertaining.
Then we saw a bit of a Cirque performance with some very talented and gymnastic performers. It was quite entertaining.
As for the shops, we found some exceptional custom clothing and leatherworking shops by some very talented individuals.
Pendragon Shoes really stuck out with their custom footwear, and it was quite an awesome surprise to see such craftsmanship.
The exhibits really opened our eyes to the high levels of talent and creativity that this part of the world offers.
All in all very happy we spent the day there, next year we plan on spending at least a couple days to really soak it in, and meet more interesting and amazing people.
I highly recommend this festival to anyone, including families as there were ample activities for children to partake in.