October 2024 – 3 festivals + Ireland road trip
Flew out of Brisbane at 10pm – had drive from home – the 2 hour drive took almost 4 because of crazy traffic – Jen (as usual) was worried we’d miss the flight – we got there in plenty of time after dropping the car of for storage.
The flight Bris to Doha was fine – we got upgraded to extra legroom seats (it pays to be nice to the check-in peeps) 3.5 hours in Doha and on the next flight I wasn’t so lucky – after we got our seat I saw this huge guy lumbering down the aisle and breathed a sigh of relief as he passed me – but he came back and sat next to me – seriously he was one of the fattest people I have seen on a plane – he had a sense of humour and apologised in advance – still didn’t stop him falling asleep and rolling over and crushing me – it got to a stage where I just gave him a hard nudge, he’d wake and say sorry then fall back to sleep within half an hour – 9 hours later and with a very sore shoulder we arrived in Berlin.
Berlin
A short cab ride to our nice hotel and a super comfy bed – we spent the next 3 days wandering around Berlin – it was freezing cold but we had lots of layers – Jen spotted a shop with a rack of gloves out the front but couldn’t see any she liked and we thought we’d get some later – well… the whole 6 weeks we kept our eyes out for gloves but could find none – that is until the last day in Belfast we spotted a really nice par for 2 pound – better late than never!
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Hamburg – Garageville Festival
We next took a train to Hamburg – the trains are great super fast at around 300km per hour and quiet and comfy. We arrived at our accommodation at the bottom of the red light Reeperbahn district as it was close to the 3 venues we had to visit for the Garageville music festival. The pre-party for the festival was in a small bar with a couple of great DJ’s playing lots of old 60’ rock & R&B, met a few nice French people who we later see at other festivals.
The first night venue was pretty small and it was packed but the bands and the vibe was great. The next night the venue was a bit bigger with a large outdoor area & again the bands were great. We discovered an awesome Mexican Restaurant near our hotel so we ate there a few times and of course I availed myself of several spicy bratwursts from nearby street vendors.
Ian Kay
Nix & The Nothings
UK – Hipsville Festival
From Hamburg we flew to Gatwick in the UK, picked up a car and drove down to Brighton for a few days – a really nice town by the sea with its famous Pier we spent a couple of days just wandering around – we then headed the 3 hours to Margate for the Hippsville festival and on the way we called in to visit a friend of ours’ mum who took us for a great lunch by the water – scallop & bacon rolls!! with chips – pretty tasty!!
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We arrived in Margate and struggled to find a parking spot and ended up about 500m away down a hill – we dragged our bags (2 each) up and got the key out of the lockbox – we then had to climb six flights of stairs to our apartment – the apartment was great but the friggin stairs were a nightmare!! Up and down then a lot over the next 6 days. We had 2 days to explore Margate before the festival started – it’s a lovely English seaside town with lots of great old buildings and a giant amusement park.
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The festival was themed “From the Deep” and was held in the Lido which is an old building right by the water. The large room was decorated with heaps of crazy underwater themed decor & lots of large video screen and light shows. First night see our friends from Belgium, The Chiff Chafs do a great set followed by the Jim Jones All Stars – both do great shows – the go-go dancers add to it for sure!
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Sat arvo sees an outdoor performance at the end of the pier at a makeshift Tiki Bar with a great surf instrumental band dressed in ancient Egyptian costumes – something you don’t see every day! Saturday night is dress up night with the festival theme of “From the Deep” – the costumes are AMAZING – the festival has been going for about 10 years and has a rep for great costumes. The Killing Floors, a young band from LA, and The Gruesomes – a not so young band from Canada do the musical honours tonite.
Chiff Chaffs
Jim Jones All Stars
The Killing Floors
The Gruesomes
France
Sunday night is rest night and we fly out to Orly airport in France, pick up our rental car & drive to Orleans about an hour and half south. Beautiful city, it the birthplace of Joan of Arc and there are lots of statues of her around. We visit some great old buildings and churches (which are huge!) and they also have a Medieval Fair that weekend in the middle of town. Great stalls, wandering minstrels, juggling buskers, mead, pigs on spits – very atmospheric.
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Cosmic Trip Festival
Next stop was Bourges – a very old city with lots to see & eat! – Cosmic Trip Festival bought us here and what a great event it was. A large venue with 2 stages, a large auditorium with the main stage and a smaller tiki vibed Jungle Room with a smaller, much more intimate stage. There was also a tent with DJ’s spinning great 60’s R&B tunes and lots of hip dancing. We got to catch up with our mates The Chiff Chaffs again who did a great set and also a few other people from previous Were Loud & other festival holidays we’d been on – great catching up with people a year later and it seem like you saw them only yesterday. Lots of Euro bands played as well as a few from the US & Canada.
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After Bourges we drove to and visited a few smaller French towns for a few days with, again, lots of great food & sights to see.We dropped the car back to Orly airport & got slugged $500 for a small scratch on the side of the car (bastards!) & caught the train to the main Paris station – after franticly running all over the place we finally found where the Eurostar departed from for our trip up to Belgium to visit our friends up there in Kortrijk.
The Strong Come Ons
Tuesday Violence
with our Were Loud roomie friend on drums
The Chiff Chaffs
Black Up
Belgium
We had 4 days up in Kortrijk ….. and what a beautiful place it is, great to have our local friends, The Chiff Chaffs, showing us around at the historic sites and more sleazy spots too! There is a famous punk venue there called The Pits that has been operating for over 35 years with tons of great bands playing in the tiny space.
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The Pits is not open on the Thursday night but one of our friends works there & has the keys so he opens up for us to have a private party – the tradition there is to “ring the bell” which means you’ll shout the bar – most people have ago as there are only about 12 of us there so we gradually get more than a little pissed! The Kortrijk crew (including The Chiff Chaffs) are a great bunch of people and we hope to catch up with them all again soon.We take the short train ride to Brussels and fly out to Ireland.
We arrive in Dublin and head straight out of town towards a quick overnite stop over in Portlaoise – an awesome meal at the restaurant and the first night in a while we get to bed reasonably early.
Next day we had to Killarney for a few nights is an eco-pod – pretty cramped but comfortable. Lots of old stuff to see around this area and we visit a lot of old castle ruins and some great forests & waterfalls.
Next to beautiful Cliffden – a really nice little coastal town, we have a dinner at a “one man show” restaurant – one guys does it all – we welcomes you, get you a drink, takes your orders, cooks and delivers your order and then takes your plates and washes up – there are only about 20 seats in the place and it works superbly with great food and a great fun atmosphere.
A couple of nights in Sligo follow with some great traditional Irish music at several of the bars around town – great place for a pub crawl!
Then to the “big wave spot” of Ireland – this place sometimes gets 30-40ft waves – sadly not this time – it’s pretty much dead flat but you can see the potential with some great looking points for waves to break around.
We then drove over to Belfast for four days. We went via Ballina (Ireland’s version) & Londonderry. Belfast is great place the locals have a great sense of humour and there are stacks of great bars & restaurants. We had some great pub meals and saw some great traditional music – it was great to see a lot of young people playing traditional instruments and the old folk tunes. We also saw a couple of more rocky bands too.
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Up to Ballycastle for our last night in Ireland and a fantastic seafood meal and a small seaside pub – finished off with a few Guinness & a whisky or two.
We drive back down to Dublin the next morning on a wonderfully scenic road – apart for the first 30 mins or so that was thick fog.
An uneventful, if not long, trip back to Brisbane & overnite there before we head home to recover.
