Blenheim Festival (Part 3)

The road to Blenheim from our house is long and flat. When we leave the mountains we won’t see another hill till the Clare Valley in SA. The distance is around 1,400km, over the trip we covered over 3,000km.

There is one particularly flat section called the Hay Plains, around 500km of pretty much flat, treeless, red, scrub.

Although it would seem that hours in the car would be boring, I really enjoyed the journey. Its rare, in our busy lives, that we have hours to talk, listen, watch and get lost in our thoughts.

On the road





I love bakery’s on the road



Water in the Murrumbidgee



Star wars



Yanga






Murray water





Flatness









Sunsets & Eagles







Back in the mountains



Kiandra



Delanys Hut

Blenheim Festival (Part 2)

After the festival we hung around the farm for a few days. We threw a big surprise birthday for Sandow. There was a lot more skating, some quad biking, wine drinking and relaxing.

We also played a lot of music on the numerous instruments and PA system in the Goose.

On our last day, we had a few beers at a local pub. Across the road was a thrift store. As the beers went down people started wandering over to the store to find funny clothes. Eventually we were all dressed in retro gear. The afternoon culminated in a big group photo in the store followed by a jam session.

The day after, chillin at the farm







The birthday cake, epic



Checking out the scenery



















Silly outfits and jamming

Blenheim Festival (Part 1)

My old mate Sandow, who I lived with as a ski bum in Canada, lives on a farm in the Clare Valley region of South Australia. Despite being a keen snowboarder, surfer and kite boarder, the farm is nowhere near the ocean or the mountains.

A few years ago, Sandow, and some of his mated decided to build a mini ramp in an old barn on his property. The project ended with the entire structure being renovated with a pub decked out with a PA and instruments, a few chill out room and of course the mini ramp.

To celebrate the completion of the ramp the fellas decided to have a party. The event has now morphed into a festival with a number of bands and heaps of people coming from all over, this year there was over 250 people.

We live pretty far from Sandows farm and haven’t been to the festival before. With the super long Easter weekend this year we decided we would drive the 1400km to Clare and check it out.

The idea was to surprise Sandow as he didn’t know we were all doing the mish to SA. We met up with some other friends a short drive from the farm. Its a bit of a long story, but we ended up surprising him dressed in boiler suits with the word ALGERIA spelt out along our backs (this relates to a nickname we had for Sandow when we all lived in Canada together). He was pretty surprised but stoked that we all made.

Anyway, enough chat , we had an awesome night dancing the night away.

Calm before the storm







It’s a nice spot



Skate action











Old Mate



A giant moth



The evenings entertainment











The morning after... punks not dead he’s just gone to bed




We hung around the farm for a few days after the festival, more to follow in the next instalment.