Spot the bridge ?!

And this is pretty much the same view as in the previous photo, but 2 days later! The whole bridge is now 3m under water!!! The main Brisbane water supply - Lake Wivenhoe, is just a few kilometers upstream, and on Tuesday night they opened the floodgates as the dam was overfull! Apparently the gates won't be closed again till Friday night, so not much hope of seeing the bridge again (let alone being able to drive over it!) until sometime late next week I reckon! Luckily the back way out is open now - though instead of a 15 minutes drive into Ipswich, it's now 35 minutes! And the way over the river is now over a weir and I noticed the water was only about 1m below that today!

It's funny - a similar situation happened just 2-3 months ago while I was overseas. Both my neighbour and my housesitters emailed me photos a bit like this, and I remember thinking - thank god I'm not there! Karma!!

I have been enjoying doing yoga with David Swenson - I have his old Primary Series DVD. It really makes me think I must practice at a much slower pace when I'm doing it completely on my own, as I'm breaking out in much more of a sweat than normal! My normal class starts up again next week.

Apart from that life is quiet. The weather is now improving, and I'm sure it's much nicer at the festival now. If only the weather situation had been reversed - nice at the beginning and awful during the end ... Oh well! I managed to spring Jedda from the pet motel (they normally won't let any animals out at all between Christmas and New Year!!) and she is very happy to be home - hardly letting me out of her sight  :)

Rain Everywhere!

I drove home over this bridge yesterday afternoon. The water was just under the bridge, but the actual road-base on my side had been lifted up badly already. I was only just able to get over it without damaging the car! And this is the view (from my side!) this morning!!

Has been a real drama-filled couple of days! It's funny - people think "Australian Christmas" = "barbecue on the beach in the blazing sun". Well, it hasn't been like that this year. (Not actually sure that I've ever had an Aussie Christmas like that!) It has been raining and raining for most of December. Having committed myself to volunteering at the Woodford music festival, which involves camping, I've been watching the weather with increasing dread! The last time I volunteered at Woodford - 3 years ago, it rained a lot and it was just awful! My tent leaked, mud was everywhere!! And I said I'd never go back ... :)

So on Boxing Day I flew back to Brisbane, collected my car (pre-packed for Woodford camping!) from near the airport and set off for Woodford. In the rain! Once I'd registered I set off to find where my friends had set up their campsite. The internal roads (tracks really!) were just dreadful - worse that I'd ever driven on. I had to drive through these huge pools/puddles of water that I'd never normally dream of driving through. A couple of times the car bottom was scraping along the bottom!!! I was soo freaked out!! Eventually I found it, and Helen helped me set up my tent - again in the rain!! I was wondering how I'd ever be able to drive out again (a week later when the festival finishes).

I then went to the actual Festival site and did the orientation for the Internet Cafe (where I was volunteering). Was reasonably encouraged to see that the road out appeared to be in much better condition than the road in! And then went back to the campsite, sat and drank red wine with Helen and Michelle. Then when I went to bed I discovered some of my bedding had got wet! There was a stream about 2 meters away, and I kept imagining it getting higher and higher with all the rain, and flooding the tents! So somewhere in that night I finally decided that unless I felt better I would to go home the next day! Pack up my tent and everything, get the car out of the campsite into the main carpark and then do my first shift at the Internet Cafe, before leaving. I could always drive back from home to do volunteer shifts. Then I fell asleep!!

Next morning I did all that - though of course there was a bit of reluctance to leave when I was wondering around the Festival site looking for something to have for lunch. There is something very seductive about it, even in the rain! (But that doesn't include camping in the rain at all!!)

And, thinking that the Kholo Bridge might be closed, I decided to come home the 'back way'. But I discovered there was a torrent of water over the road that even a big 4-wheel drive wasn't going to attempt, and I certainly wasn't in my little car!! So I decided to check out the Kholo Bridge before giving up and seeing if I could go and stay at my Aunt's place. And luckily it was 'open', although there were 'closed' signs up, but pulled a bit to one side. The water hadn't got over the bridge (like it is in the photo above). But the tarmac on one side was all broken up by the water that had come up there, and it was only because people had made a way through that I could get across it without damaging the car bottom! And now this morning the river has risen again, as evidenced by the photo, so no way anyone is getting over it for a few days now! So it's lucky I did a bit of shopping before I came home!! Marooned for a day or two probably, after which I'll try the back way again!!

The Dreaming Festival ...

Yesterday a friend and I went up to Woodford to go to the Dreaming Festival. This is an indigenous music/drama/arts festival on the site of the Woodford Music festival that I usually go to each Christmas/New Year period. For some reason I'd always resisted going to the Dreaming Festival (this is its 4th year) but this year I thought I really needed cheering up (!) and decided to go.

And it was just wonderful! I had the best time ... :) Saw some wonderful music, and amazing dancing (not to mention wonderful theatre too).

These are the 'Chooky Dancers' - young Aboriginal guys from an island off Arnhem Land (in the north of Australia), most of whom can barely speak English. A few months ago someone put a video up on YouTube of them doing their own take on Zorba the Greek, and it just took off! Hilarious! They have now been invited to Greece to do it, and who knows where else! This (below) is one of the Youtube videos - of them doing a dance to Superman!



And these are another Aboriginal group of dancers with heaps of children joining in - doing a kangaroo dance!!

Then we went and heard Gurrumul singing. A just incredible Aboriginal singer. Blind from birth, mostly sings in his local language, was once in Yothu Yindi (Aussies will know this Aboriginal band!) and now also in the Saltwater Band (ditto!). He has such a beautiful pure voice ... and again, it was totally wonderful! At one point, for one song, you heard this didgeridoo in the distance, the stage had a dark background, and then these Aboriginal dancers came through the mist and darkness and were dancing on the stage too. It was eerie, mysterious and totally mesmerising!! Unfortunately the photos I took were very dark and don't do it justice at all.

I could go on - about the amazing Maori play set in World War 2 in Italy, the 3 Native American dancers, the campfires set up through the festival grounds where people sat around and talked ... on and on. It was truly a wonderful day, and just what I needed! I am slowly getting used to life without Mieke, though i did again burst into tears yesterday when I told my friend about it. But life goes on (as always!) and I know there are new and wonderful experiences coming to everyone, me included.

Apricot jam, and music, and the environment, and cricket ...

Back home after a lovely lazy fun-filled holiday! Down at my Mum's in NSW we celebrated Christmas on the Saturday (23rd) as the relatives couldn't come on Christmas Day ...

And on Christmas day we had a quiet day and ended up making Apricot Jam with the apricots from Mum's tree - which was completely laden! Such a nice thing to do (and it is delicious!!)










Then it was back on the plane and up to Woodford ... Here are a few photos ...

street scene


Flamenco Fire


Afro Dizziac playing


Street Performer outside the Circus tent


"Seagulls" at the Woodford cricket match, stealing food!!

Saw/heard some wonderful music, dancing, even a demo of Capoeira which is just incredible! If I wasn't doing Ashtanga I'd be really tempted to have a go at that ... Saw Tim Freedman (singer from The Whitlams), Po' Girl (a Canadian group), John Butler Trio - and heaps of others.

It was great to collapse in the village green area and find a Woodford cricket match going on! Complete with Tony Greig (sound-alike!) commentator! All the kids were joining in - and then these street performing 'seagulls' appeared and having interfered with the ball in the game, then decided to wander through the crowd and try and steal their food (chips etc!!) Hilarious!!! (I won't mention the 55+-year-old male streaker that appeared! Some things should be left unsaid - and unseen!!!)

And one of the (many!) really great things was getting a chance to hear Bob Brown (Australian Green Senator) speak a couple of times. He is such a wonderful speaker, and is so clear on the importance of our environment. Everyone there - we all wanted him to be the next Prime Minister of Australia! One thing he said really stuck with me. That when people say that the economy will go to pieces if we put the environment first, to remember that when women were trying to get the vote, everyone then said that if women got the vote it would be disastrous for the economy. And how ridiculous is that now!!! He also said that suffragettes fought for many many years to get the vote, but eventually they succeeded. And we have to be like that about the environment.

Woodford Folk Festival

Well - Woodford is over for another year ... Such an amazing 6-7 days ... I did yoga, drove musicians to where they were performing, listened to heaps of wonderful and different music, rehearsed and sang in the festival choir, danced my feet off, sweltered in the 40degC + heat, and cooled down sitting in shady places ... Ate wonderful food, met up with friends, talked for hours, slept a little bit! And lots more!

Yoga wasn't ashtanga - run by a group called Radiant Light yoga. Still, so good to do yoga though, and a lot of the poses were the same. I'd done a bit of yoga in the week before down at my Mum's place in Bowral, but it was good to do a class for 3 days.

Really, 'Woodford Folk Festival' is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there's some lovely folk music, but there's also heaps of blues, jazz, world, pop, reggae and other music. Pretty much the only music they don't welcome there is country (thank goodness!!!) Plus Tibetan monks, various types of dance, cabaret, circus (lots of that this year), puppets, weird and wonderful street performers and who knows what else!!

Music that I really loved this year included Chris Berry's Panjea, (American band including a wonderful anti-death penalty song - "Why do we kill people ,who kill people, to teach people that killing people is wrong?"!! Right on!!!), Bomba, (fabulous big reggae band), Fruit (3 women singing gorgeous harmonies) and Ash Grunwald - great young Aussie blues/roots singer.