23rd annual Hillside festival

Erin at my place, picking me up for Hillside.

The sweet set up job they did. Minor problem with the height of the tarp though. It seemed like genius, because of the stormy forecast, but there was no rain all weekend, and the ridiculous heat and humidity turned the tents into a greenhouse. On saturday it was bitchin windy and it tore the tarp right out of the ground, it was flapping around like a sail.

Here's a better picture of the sweet location we got.

Camping like royalty

Erin's friend Rebecca who although she didn't really like me, was in love with that couch. It fit her perfectly, like love at first sit.

A drumming ceremony at the native tent.

Erin coming out of the bathroom, you know what she was doing in there.

The tents crowded in on all sides, if it weren't for the tarp we wouldn't have had anywhere to hang out around our tents.

Tents everywhere.

Rebecca trying to elude the lens.

Erin brought a freaking hammock.

The lack of zoom cause me to stop taking pictures like this, but this is at mainstage while the stills were playing. that is sheppard's head inthe foreground.

A view of the island from the causeway, you can almost make out the mainstage and the Hillside letters.

The Stills, again.

Damn Hippies crowding us on all sides.

Surprise! I saw Becca, in your face everyone! I ran into Rebecca and Daryl and her sister randomly one afternoon. It was cool that I got to see her before I left, I missed so many people.

Erins analog camera. Low-tech.

Rebecca smokes.

Hippies, bathing, lounging, dancing.

She complained alot about how burned her legs were, she should have seen Bryce's.

desktop picture

Erin drinking the beer we got from sheppard.

I couldn't tell you why she looks the way she does.

Again indulging my foot fetish.

There were just random painted things everywhere.

like this...

..and this...

so I said hello in the only way I know how.

yep.

The mascot for Hillside.

Hippy Laundry

Hillside!

Funky lights.

This seems self explanatory.

The main stage with everything taken down.

I took this picture because there are funny words on there.

The sun stage was completely solar powered and used exclusively for spoken word and rapping.

Lake stage.

I have no idea what this thing is supposed to be.

The roof of the mainstage was covered with plants, this picture isn't very good, but my camera cant zoom.

No food here this morning.

I assume that this is the effigy of 'the man' that all the hippy children hit with sticks and light on fire.

There is a bunny somewhere in this picture.

The native tent and the smouldering ashes of the sacred fire.

the painted signs all around the island, hippies love to paint.

These guys were very popular with the ladies. The ones who weren't vegetarian, hippie, lesbians anyway.

Four very tall sticks surrounding the sacred flame, which allegedly stayed lit all weekend, though I walked by at one point it was only embers.

The Island stage empty on sunday morning, when a band played here, we could hear it perfectly from our tent.

Strange light thing along the path to the festival.

Note the bottle of wine leaning against the sign. Go Hippies!

This is an attempt to show the lack of space separating loud from quiet camping, and the futility of the division.

The sign signifying that you were in quiet camping, and that you needed to be quiet. This sign was approximately 10 steps away from the noisy camping/party zone. Noise made in the loud camping zone was still audible in the quiet zone. There was not much sleep to be had.

My volunteer and age of majority wrist bands.

The castle of beer bottles from the volunteers for the weekend. There was alot of drinking after the festival shut down. And lots of Drumming.... all freaking night.

This is a picture of my boredom waiting for Erin and Rebecca to return with the car.

The fuel that fed the drums all night while everyone was trying to sleep.

The weekend's collection of beer cans and bottles from the volunteer campsite.

The view from our tent on monday.

The elusive Wellington Beer truck in its natural habitat.

The volunteer campsite nearly completely empty as we were leaving on monday.

On our way out on monday morning we drove around the park and caught site of the infamous dish ninjas plying their trade. They were still doing the dishes from sunday night and were not even close to finishing.

The ever-present port-a-potty. It really wasn't that bad, they were cleaned like twice a day.

The festival mainstage on monday morning.

The first sign of Hillside festivities, the banding tent. I spent a whole night here for no reason. It wasn't always the most organised festival.

The beach where we swam every morning.

The main gate to the park, on our way out.

The End of Hillside, everyone going home.