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Highandry was organised at very short notice by the Figure 8 crew after Peats Ridge Festival was cancelled. They were going to run their eco-dome as a stage at Peat's Ridge but instead it became a stage at the new festival. Allegedly the name was sarcastic, but in fact the festival was well above water level and free from rain... so much for sarcasm.

They started a quick blog site and started begging a bunch of stuff from all their mates as well as collecting a pretty impressive line-up of bands.

So on Christmas eve I wandered over to the warehouse and started helping get stuff together and spent a week on site preparing and helping run the event in my own small way.

It was fun, I had a great time, and I didn't get too sunburnt. Plus I had my annual swim (I don't like cold water). In fact, I had my annual swim several times because it was so nice. More photos on this page

After hanging the sign next to the main gate. The site plan, version one-ish. Red text is my overlay. Assembling the dome. You start from the top and just keep going round and round lifting up about half the dome, adding sections and lifting the next bit. Real pros do it with a sissor lift in the middle and it's faster, but this way requires less stuff and The dome with battery trailer and a couple of small solar panels feeding it. The batteries were pretty much charged when we got on site so this is just powering a drill battery charger... with a 15kW inverter. Later Energy Co-op added another kilowatt of panels to make it work better. yay volunteers! Vicky sewing flags. Kitchen volunteers kept the crew running. So much food, so many people eating. Another truckload of stuff being unloaded. Barry did quite a few trips to Sydney and seemed to come back with a full truck every time. We used the main stage for storage since it was pretty weatherproof and already up. :Painting to toilet doors. Composting toilets bought from the Peat's Ridge organisers. Despite only being 10km away in a straight line the Peat's Ridge site is a long drive away. Big dome, little dome. Bikes arrive! Newtown Bike Club bikes with Tom driving. The toilet guy doing his thing. (I am really, really bad at names). Punters arriving. So many cars! Council and cops having another dicussion (they're the fat ones). After much talk of how non-approved and risky the festival was the crew managed to talk them round to "not forbidden" status. Oooh, look, punters! At last there's entertainment happening. Sign for Tipis and the Gingerbread House stage. Welcome to country by the Lyons family. Crowd in front of the main stage. It's hot even at 10am! This guy was good but (as usual) I can't remember his name. Puong swimming. The wee waterproof camera worked a treat, and there were a few of them around (you could tell coz peo There's really nice mud for body painting and beauty treatments. body art - fairy wings this time. a metal band. "munters crossing" sign where the munters cross. Main entry/exit road runs up the background. Bike Club kids selling beers off the binbike. Andy does not believe in using sunscreen. Mr Bamboo playing. WTF MySpace? Teh Suxx! sun going down (at last!) Fuji Collective At 3am some moron decided to cook two minute noodles next to our campsite and managed to screw up their burner so badly it caught fire and wouldn't turn off. Much gas leakage and running about later it was all over, but we had already gone for a walk to let people who were more awake deal with the problem. Gingerbread house. Actually it's a bamboo yurt but, you know. Camping area at sunset when it was pretty filled up. Sydney Samba School did a wee parade around the site on new year's eve. LegoKid and his DIY "this is heaps better than Peat's Ridge" t shirt. hanging out in the stalls area as dusk falls. the DIY body art zone surgical sideshow puppet performance hula hoop with lights in it. Too cool! fire twirling. Fortunately there was only one of them, everyone else bought battery-powered stuff. lighted poi in front of the dome.
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