Secret Garden Party

Hey pal!!

The Scottish love the word pal. Instead of saying "She'll be right", it's "Nae bother pal". This isn't the reason why I decided to live back in Edinburgh for three months after my Contiki trip. Of all the places in Britain that I visited, Edinburgh was the place I could have pictured myself living. To cut a very very long story short, my plan was to get a job, a bank account and a house that I could share with Andy and Anna. Finding a house was easy enough, Andy knew a person with a house up for rent. Check. A bank account? Every bank told us we need a job. Time to find a job! That didn't happen. I am confident in saying that I applied for over 100 jobs in my time in Edinburgh. My only success were two interviews, both of which never called me back. For those who don't know, there is a month long festival held in August in Edinburgh called the Fringe Festival which is host to food, drinks, plays, musicals, comedians, street performers and most importantly, music. As soon as the festival started, jobs were popping up like mushrooms. The only requirement? You have to work until the end of the festival. On the last Wednesday of August every year, the Spanish tomato throwing festival 'La Tomatina' is on. On my relatively short check-list of things to do in Europe is La Tomatina, so I gave up searching for work and made the most of my little break in Edinburgh before hitting the road again. That is the short version.

I should also mention that I lived in a hostel for about a month while in Edinburgh, and between the move from the hostel to the house, I managed to leave The Moocher behind. She’s gone. I had her sitting on a window sill, and if I could be happy about anything, it was the situations she could have ended up in. If a gust of wind came, perhaps she could have fallen off the window into the street below and hit someone in the face. Maybe it would brighten up their day. How many of you have walked the street and been hit in the face by a rubber vagina?

Since I had no commitments and didn't have to be anywhere or answer to anyone for the duration of my time in Edinburgh, I was free to look at other festivals held around the UK. One festival we found was called the Secret Garden Party. With a name like that, how could you go wrong? You can't! The festival was bloody brilliant and by deciding to join Anna, this was one of my best decisions I've made. This is the story:

We'd managed to find a rideshare lift straight to the festival, rather than catching a 9 hour urine-smelling bus to London, than having to catch an hour long train to Huntingdon where it was held. Her name was Jo and she was from Glasgow. We had to catch a 45 minute bus out of Edinburgh to meet her. We made it there ahead of schedule and therefore sat down for a wee beer at one of the local bars. Before we knew it, she'd emerged from one of the bars holding a half-pint of Carlsberg. She looked normal enough and she was easy to understand unlike many Scottish country folk. She had to pee but told us that her van was around the corner and we could have a look and see if we liked it. While she was gone, I had myself a squiz around the corner to see nothing but an old ambulance van. I joked to Anna saying "Hahaha, there is only an ambulance, imagine if that was hers. I'd eat a cupboard in delight if it was".

There was no cupboard eating, but the van was definitely hers. She put me in the back and it was decked out complete with speakers, stretchers and sirens. Before I could comprehend what was happening, we were hurtling along the highway and on our way. After a good 6 hours on the road, we got out in a smashing little university city called Cambridge. The entire city is pretty much owned by the university. Young people frolicked in the parks, the bars, the shopping centres and most importantly, the university grounds. I loved Cambridge. It was full of life.

Jo pulled us out at her friends recording studio where there was a band rehearsing. They welcomed us in to their jam, and although it sounded pretty bloody awful (The band consisted of a drummer, two rappers and a keyboard player who's keyboard didn't actually plug into anything. Apart from the drummers and rappers, the entire ensemble was pre-recorded) but the gesture was nice. The chaps themselves were friendly enough and for accommodation, we slept in one of his studio rooms. My face was next to a drum kit as if to tease me that I haven't played mine for almost 9 months now. I almost couldn't get to sleep due to my urge to sit on them and start thrashing away.

Anna and myself spent the next day self-guiding ourselves around the city. We found big universities, little universities, heaps of Spanish and American youths, a mini Venice and most importantly, a movie cinema. Toy Story 3. What a success that was. Although I'm still not convinced that 3D is as good as they say, the movie itself was brilliant. I was terrified of what the outcome could have been due to the fact that it's prequel was made 10 years ago and this was a different director. It was bloody hilarious, and even though most of the characters were replaced with new one's, they kept all the good one's.

After buying some food and alcohol for the week, we were all ready for 4 days of camping. Until this point, Jo was normal enough...sort of. This paragraph can be dedicated to her. If Anna is reading this, I bet she's looking forward to this bit. While buying our stuff from TESCO, Jo called and told us to just give her a ring when we were ready to be picked up. I told her that we were shopping for our food and alcohol and we would be finished soon. When I rang her 10 minutes later and told her we were ready, she told us that she couldn’t pick us up because she was having a nap. That left us in the middle of Cambridge city until when-ever Jo decided that she slept up enough to come and get us. Our sunlight was rapidly diminishing and we had no idea how to get back to the recording studio. With no jumpers or jeans, we were getting bloody cold and bloody annoyed. About 30 minutes later, Jo sent us a text telling us to go to some bar and she’ll meet us there some time that evening. Upon asking where the bar was, she informed us that she had no idea where it was and that she might not even make it. Picking up all our groceries and alcohol for a week (To go and sit in a bar), we started walking, in a direction which we hoped was the correct one. Our shopping bags were heavy and we were tired, it wasn’t a pleasant situation. When we finally met up with her later (She rang us and decided to take us to her van rather than the bar) she told us how much we owed her for fuel. Before we started the trip, she failed to mention that her ambulance was a bloody diesel that chewed through the fuel like pouring water through a strainer. We owed her 30 pounds each (The bus to London was 14 pound) and we had already spent six pounds on a bus get to where she was. After buying some new speakers, disco balls, lights and transformer, she then told us that the fuel in her ambulance would be providing the power for all these things, and that the engine would be going every night at the festival. I guess we were supposed to pay for that too.

I’ll stop there because I’m just having a bitch. In the end, she turned out to be a person with two ego’s. One second she’d be really nice and charming, the other, she’d be hostile and say snide, sarcastic remarks and telling us that we’re stupid. I can’t express my frustration or experience with Jo in words that won’t offend.

After throwing us out of the van at the front gate and taking off, it was up to Anna and myself to find our own way in. On the Secret Garden Party website in big bold letters were the words “Only one bottle of wine and 4 cans of beer or cider allowed per person or 8 cans of beer and cider per person”. Needless to say, they expected everyone to disgrace this rule and try and sneak in more alcohol so they would have to pay the hideous prices for beer in the festival itself. Therefore, at the entrance were five security guards searching through the bags of 70,000 people. When I say searching through the bags, I mean that a sniffer dog would go past the bag, all the contents emptied to check for too much alcohol and dangerous items (A Swiss Army knife is a dangerous item…How the hell do I cut up my food!? We’re camping you bloody fools!). Because of the extreme precautions, this meant it took us 3 hours standing in a line, in the sun, with our bags to get from the back of the line to the entrance. I heard worse stories of up to 5 hours waiting. Thank Christ it wasn’t us.

Due to our filthy backpacker status, we decided to try and smuggle in a very large bottle of 10 pound vodka in case the situation arose where we would need it, on top of our 8 cans each of 8.6% cider. I think we were set without the vodka, but it added a little excitement to our waiting in the line. When we finally arrived at the searching zone, I thought it was all over for us, the bastard was pulling everything out of the bags and was confiscating knives, forks, and anything that could stab. I swiftly shifted my Swiss Army knife to a most uncomfortable place to keep a knife, my jocks. Taking one look at our bags and my Australian flag, the chap simply said “You guys are over here for a year, I am not going through those bags, have a good festival”. After shoving our tickets in the ticket-lady’s face, we were through, knives, vodka and all!

Anna had bought a two-man tent back in Edinburgh for about 18 Aussie bucks. Knowing the UK’s reputation for crappy rainy weather, the words “Suitable for light showers” concerned me, but we whacked her up anyway. After 3 minutes of setting it up, we thought maybe we’d been jibbed, and maybe some of it was missing, but on closer inspection, the tent that we set up was just the way it was supposed to be. If I was sitting on the ground, my head touched the roof. If we like side by side with shoulders touching, we would kind of fit. Being only 175cms tall, I’m not a massive chap, but unless my knees were bent, I did not fit. The two of us squeezed ourselves in uncomfortably, only to realise that our bags and groceries were still outside. How the hell were we going to do this I asking myself. Spooning my big backpack and using my little one as a pillow with our groceries dispersed between us, it was all good. As there was no fly for the tent, we couldn’t just throw them outside unfortunately.

Now, the festival itself on the other hand was outstanding. Music was everywhere, and as we didn’t get a chance to buy anything awesome to wear, we were pretty much the only one’s not wearing something outrageous. This was my kind of place. It seemed that we were the only people from the Southern Hemisphere - Even better!

With about 15 stages, all with a different styles of music or acts, we were definitely in our glory. One stage was an old pirate ship that was built around the trees, so they were essentially playing from the trees.

We found what we thought was just a pile of sticks, but on closer inspection was a little cubby house made of sticks. When we had a look inside, on each wall of the house was an out-of-tune harp each with a couple strings missing.

Further along, there was a piano sitting on the side of the road for anyone to play. Sometimes smoke would erupt from the organ pipes sticking out of it.

In the middle of the festival was a massive lake that filthy hippies sometimes jumped into to cover their dreads in a bit more grime. In the middle of the lake was a massive blimp that they had made. It was another stage where they were playing dance music. You jumped on a boat and paddled out to the blimp and rocked out.

I also saw a little crappy boat made from barrels and wood. On this little crappy boat was a band, drum kit and all. I wanted to paddle out and join them, but there was far too much more to see.

I could go on forever about what I saw, but telling stories serves it no awesomeness.

There were three Australian artists that played (That we knew of) and we managed to see all of them. On the Grand Stage was Sarah Blasko. She had a great set, and it was interesting to see her in a setting where no-one had even heard of her. Her keyboard player looked like Dan Auerbach with a filthy big beard and long dirty hair. He’d be close to my idol and I definitely had a man-crush. The chap sitting next to us looked about 40 and had long balding hair and every time I saw him over the festival, all he was wearing were a tight pair of black Speedo’s. He was another one of my idols over the week. I don’t think I managed to get a picture of him unfortunately.

Our next Australian musician was a fella called Matt Gresham. I’d never heard of him before, but he smashed it and I everyone thought he was bloody brilliant. He was from Perth and was an absolute champion. We saw him by chance at an open mic night which we decided to go along and have a look at. He only played 3 songs, and after his set he came out and sat in the audience. He was ecstatic when I went and talked to him. On the following night, he had a full set at the same venue, and so we made ourselves a date for the second time at the festival.

On the next night, he blew the roof off and everyone in the tent was up and dancing and I’d dare say he sold a few albums that night.

Finally, Lisa Mitchell was the last Australian on our list to see. In Anna’s words, before making it big time, Lisa would have been sitting in her room by herself with a crappy busted-ass guitar making songs. Now that she’s known Australia-wide and has some popularity, she needs to have a different guitar for every bloody song she plays. She was given 1 hour and a half to rock the house, as opposed to the standard 45 minutes that every other bastard was allowed. When one of her 20 acoustic guitars wasn’t working, she spent 1 hour and 15 minutes getting pissed off at the tech crew for not fixing it rather than just picking another one up. Therefore she only had time to play three songs. Each of those were really good, but that only heightened my anger, because she could have blown me away with all of her other tunes.

As a massive finale, on the last night there was a massive fire works display. This wasn’t any old fireworks display though. Before anything happened, there would have had to be at least 5,000 of those floating lantern things that were let go into the sky. Once they were all gone, the massive blimp in the middle on the lake was lit on fire and blown up. Out of the blimp came the fire works and all sorts of colour displays and fire. After the fire show at Woodford I saw on New Years 2009-2010, it was one of the biggest displays I’d seen.

After our previous experiences and those at the festival, we decided to not use her services for the trip. We caught a train to London, then a bus back to Edinburgh.

Another month down the line, Callum, an old friend from Townsville and his girlfriend Lucy came and visited and before long, we were on the road again and off to Spain.

All will be covered in the next edition of Eurotrip - Featuring The Heff.

Oh yeah, I've decided to add a few additional pictures of my time in Edinburgh. There are stories to them all, but maybe some of them are best left between those in the pictures.

Among other things, Anna found this cape in a cupboard when we moved in.