Hippie's Paradise

New Years Weekend of 0607 – Had a respectable distance to cover on the Saturday morning – Redfern to Gordon (another excellent non stop ride which I pleased me immensely – so much so that I even felt obliged to tell the parents despite knowing they would never approve of running a red light) - was fed pancakes by mum (always good but the one that she cooks for herself is always so much better than the ones she makes for us, a mystery to which I think I will never find the answer).  >From there it was pretty much next stop – Peats Ridge – almost got cleaned up by a car trailing a boat whilst still on the Pacific Highway but once I got on the freeway it was almost smooth sailing the entire way – 110km speed limit and I was flying past the backed up cars for the first ten klicks – by that reckoning I must have been going a cool 120kph, no mean feat on a fixie, but this was only until a carefully aimed staple gun shot a packing staple right into my rear tyre stranding me for 15m while I fixed it (was very surprised by how many jeers and laughs I got from passing motorists – not THAT many but baffled why anyone would do that at all).  The rest of the ride was fine and after a few hours I found myself at the entrance to the site – very sketchy descent down the mountain to the campsite where my very specific instructions led me straight to the campsite.  Kind of.  Directions were real pirate’s treasure style (cross the bridge, turn right for 100 paces until the you see the Silver Mercedes then turn left and walk another 30 paces until you see the Silver Ute with the number plate of whatever – if only I knew where to start ... Alexandretta perhaps?). Caught up with the main crew of very well prepared happy campers and settled down to mass enjoyment of festival.  Food was okay but expensive (but it’s a festival so everything is expensive).  The other guys I was with had spent 4 hours descending the mountain  because of a huge traffic jam and spent the rest of the trip unfavourably comparing it to Woodford Festival’s organisation – the traffic jam had scarred some of them so much that they even changed their plans and returned to Sydney on the New Year’s Eve to avoid the dreaded jam on the way back out.    Crowd was pretty friendly, bit feral and a bit hippy but mostly chilled and friendly once you looked beyond the dreadlocks and into the heart within (doesn’t work with everybody with dreadlocks) - saw a fair few people I knew – a couple of couriers including Paddles – one of the serious long timers who I’ve never met before but turned out to be a very friendly chap – wonder if he’ll talk to me on the street though, school friends (?) and baristas scattered around Sydney.  A lot of music was seen – some really good, some pretty good and some good if you’re a hippy but abysmal if you’re me – liked the enviro-friendly determination of the organisers and I even thought about going to a workshop on climate change but the pub won out in the end.  The Eve was very pleasant – a bit of a swapover of participants – some leaving and some arriving resulting in a net nothing – ingested far too much of far too many different things but didn’t seem to cause too much anxiety – almost missed the countdown after spending hours tracking down various bits and pieces all over the entire festival but saw it and enjoyed it and then enjoyed the night some more.  Ah, Peats Ridge, what a very decent place.  Headed homeward reasonably early after our group had left - couldn’t find my phone but was pretty certain it was in my big bag that was being motored back to Sydney so didn’t worry about it – very fast run back down the freeway – some excessively long descents which are really not pleasant on a fixie, definitely would have been the fastest I’ve ever gone on that bike but it makes me feel like a naughty marionette doll, my legs just being rattled to pieces by the spinning cranks – couple of pit stops on the way home meant a rather late return but it did mean I was fed a few times and I like being fed.  Upon arriving back in Sydney I went to a little bit of an effort to find my mobile phone – searched rucksack, got Paul to search the tent (after he had returned from hospital with suspected appendicitis – which is another story entirely for the human equivalent of Smurls McKenzie) and tried calling it and after repeated attempts finally got through to Andy, who was sitting out at Peats Ridge, recovering from the previous night’s festivities.  However, all was not lost as Andy happens to live about three blocks down the road – it’s a small world after all.