As first timers at the Tamworth Country Music Festival it's difficult to get your head around Australia's biggest music festival. At most festivals we have attended, you purchase a festival ticket and then you are free to roam between the venues. Most performances, regardless of the venue, are about forty minutes long and therefore your festival planning is quite simple. At Tamworth there is no festival ticket. Instead there are some fifty venues. Some are free, some you have to pay to see an artist, and some venues are free for some gigs and you have to pay for others. The cost of a gig ranges from a gold coin donation to $50. Artists may be on stage from anywhere between ten minutes and three hours; at Tamworth your festival planning is much more difficult.
8 Ball Aitken
I called Steve and I drifters at this year’s festival. We drifted from one venue to another and discovered some great music along the way. Of course some acts were too loud, some played for too long and others didn't play for long enough. We particularly enjoyed swamp blues guy, 8 Ball Aitken. 8 Ball has great songs and his between song patter is some of the best I have ever heard; it seemed to me that 8 Ball Aitken is on his way to the big time.
Dana Hassall, Hayley Marsten & Roger Corbett
Writers In The Round was on most mornings at the Tamworth Services Club. This was a very enjoyable session where three songwriters sang their original songs and spoke of their inspiration. The songs the teenagers and young adults were writing certainly gave an insight into the personal struggles of this generation.
Me at the Atrium Festival Stage
Timing is everything and I happened to be in conversation with Bob Kirchner, station manager at Capital Country Radio, when String Loaded cancelled their Sunday gig on the Atrium Festival Stage and I scored the gig. After eight weeks travelling on my motorcycle without my guitar, I had a bit of work to do to prepare a few tunes, but all’s well that ends well, and I get to say I sang at Tamworth.
John was promoting his 52nd album, Butcherbird
By day six of the festival we bought tickets to see John Williamson in the Tamworth Town Hall, principally to get away from the number of break-up songs we were listening to. John pleased the audience by playing his old favourites including True Blue. At the end of the two hour gig, John asked the audience to stand and sing Waltzing Matilda; this was a memorable festival moment.
Toni & The Rhythm Cats
Busking in the street is a big part of the festival but surely buskers should be restricted on the power of their amplification. The allocated busking locations were so close together, and some had the capability to be so loud, at times we had to move on for fear that our brains could not process the combined mashed sound.
Just about to start the cavalcade
On Australia Day, Steve and I were very grateful for the opportunity to join the Tamworth Ulysses Branch in the cavalcade. Riding through the streets of Tamworth in 40 degrees, at walking pace, was a challenge on a heavy bike, but well worth it for the memory bank.
The festival was excellent but it was a tough ten days living in a tent, with very little shade. The relentless extreme heat by day, and sleeping under a wet T shirt by night, nearly sent me troppo and I noticed myself sighing a lot and “for f… sake” was never far from my breath.
It was with a smile that at 7am on the 27th January, with the sun just lifting above the horizon and with the thermometer already reading a warm 29 degrees Celsius, we shot through. It felt good to leave behind the festival of awards and allegedly charting songs. We stayed for the whole ten days because after all, we were in the home town of Australian Country Music and we weren't sure we would ever pass this way again.
It wasn't that we had run out of things to do in Sydney, we had just run out of things we wanted to do and when we rode away from Surry Hills on Friday 4th January we were smiling from ear to ear.
We weren't going far on our first day back with the bikes. We'd booked Devil (F650GS) and Dwarfie (R1200GS) in for a service at Gee Tee Motorcycles at Berowa only 45km away. The guys were waiting for us and well before lunch time the service was complete and we spent the afternoon cruising the crests and curves along the Pacific Highway.
Berowa Waters ferry
We were on our way early the following day, with 40 degrees forecast we were determined to get a couple of hours under the wheel before the conditions reached “uncomfortable.” We descended quickly down Berowa Waters Road to our first ferry crossing over Berowa Creek. On the other side we found The Old Northern Road and then the famous Wiseman Ferry took us across The Hawkesbury River. We trundled along, acknowledging the local bikers enjoying their Saturday run, and smiling all the while we were hanging out with the bikes again. Two hours into a 300km ride and we hadn't made 100km.
Wollombi Tavern
The temperature soared and we stopped for a coldie, and lots of water, at Wollombi Tavern. The air conditioned tea rooms of Icki Sticky turned up just in time for us to cool down once more. We were encouraged onwards by the number of local bikers on the road and we arrived at Wangi Wangi mid afternoon.
Wangi Wangi Point, Lake Macquarie
We pitched the tent in the shade of a towering eucalypt and patiently waited for the cool change to arrive. The southerly swooped in at about 5pm with the onset of thunderstorm activity but we remained on the fringes of the severe weather system and only a few drops fell on our humble tent. We looked out over the beautiful Lake Macquarie and felt happy to be back with our tin mugs and plastic plates; Airbnb provides great comfort but it does not come without responsibility.
Hawkes Nest Koala Reserve,
Don't stop there!
I knew the patchwork roads of NSW would turn up somewhere and sure enough, on the road between Wangi and Port Stephens, they arrived; roads full of patched up pot holes, and pot holes waiting to be patched up. We stopped for lunch at Hawkes Nest but not before the local ranger caught us trying to catch a glimpse of a koala in a no standing zone; Steve says it was the most expensive photo of a koala ever taken.
Forster - Tuncurry from Cape Hawke lookout
We camped at Forster for four nights, with the sand flies and the humidity and hundreds of kids. The visit to The National Motorcycle Museum was well worthwhile. I looked eagerly through the collection for an example of my Yamaha DT100 road trail, which I bought new in 1979, and for my Honda 250T (1981). I found the Honda, it was outback waiting for space inside the museum.
National Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac
Great bike road
In Wangi another traveller asked me “Where are your favourite places?” to which I answered “We don’t have favourite places, only favourite roads.” The New England High Country is home to a great set of roads, from the Thunderbolts Way to the Oxley, Gwydir, Bucketts, and Bruxner Highways. We rode them all, some in both directions, and enjoyed the cooler nights in the high country at Walcha and Tenterfield.
Tenterfield Saddlery
Very inspirational
Tenterfield marked a turning point on our summer's ride as it was as far north as we were going; next stop Tamworth Country Music Festival.
We began our Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race spectator experience at the home of the great race, the CYCA (Cruising Yacht Club of Australia), for the crew party on Saturday 22nd December. The club was welcoming, and with a little assistance we were soon registered as members for a day and free to cruise along the jetties.
We caught up with Enterprise, our Fremantle Sailing Club entrant, and soaked up the atmosphere; race flags a flying, it was magic. We were surprised that the headline acts, the five maxi yachts (Wild Oats XI, Comanche, Black Jack, InfoTrack and Scallywag) were not moored at CYCA and were not part of the festival village. There was no encouragement to check them out at their various berthing locations either.
Me and Wild Oats XI
After the 2017 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, which saw Wild Oats XI stripped of her record breaking line honours because of an infringement with Comanche just after race start, I wrote the song “The Ghost of Wild Oats XI.” To me it seemed important for folks to know how the yacht, Wild Oats XI, felt about the race result. I knew I had to track her down and on Christmas Eve we found her hiding at Woolwich Dock, with InfoTrack and Wild Oats X. I shared a moment with her; Steve and I were the only ones there.
Scallywag takes the sterns of Comanche and InfoTrack
We contemplated our options for race day, Boxing Day, and decided that the vantage point on South Head would do very nicely. Early Boxing Day morning we were at CYCA to wish everyone well and watch the yachts depart. Then we walked up to Edgecliff Station from where we were delivered to Watsons Bay by express bus. We trudged along Camp Cove’s very narrow beach before making our way slowly up to South Head along the well defined trail. By now it was 11:30am, 90minutes before race start, shade was at a premium but it didn't matter. The five super maxis were beginning to parade up and down the harbour. They were simply magnificent, larger than life even against the TP52's.
There is no doubt there is pride at stake to be the first yacht out of the heads, and it was as exciting as a Formula 1 race watching the five maxis tack their way out of the harbour. Some found holes in the wind and others found unfavourable shifts in the winds direction. Black Jack won the battle and was the first to poke her nose out into the Tasman Sea.
South Head
We stayed a while on South Head until the last yacht, Gun Runner, a Jarkan 9.3m sloop, had made her way around the turning mark outside Sydney Heads and was on her way south.
We kept a close eye on the tracker and the race for line honours seemed like Comanche's to lose. Then under the cover of darkness, on Friday 28th December, Wild Oats XI found her way into the lead and at 8:07am she took line honours for the 9th time in her chequered career.
Black Jack in Sydney Harbour
No sooner had Mark Richards filled the line honours cup with champagne, Second over the line, Black Jack, cast an element of doubt over the win when he reported that Wild Oats XI’s AIS (automatic identification system) was not switched on all the time in the closing stages of the race. He said they felt disadvantaged as, at times, they didn't know where she was, the direction she was heading, and how fast she was going.
Black Jack did not lodge a protest. Several hours later the race committee decided to lodge a protest against Wild Oats XI based on information reported by Black Jack's owner, Peter Harburg. This protest was dismissed by the jury who said for the protest to be valid it must be lodged by a competitor with information about the potential rule breach. Wild Oats XI got to keep her line honours victory and the media focus turned to the important task of reporting on the other competitors still to finish the race.
Race winner, Alive
Tasmanian yacht, Alive, was declared the overall winner of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race; the Reichel Pugh 66 is only the third Tasmanian yacht to win this most famous ocean race.
Watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race was not the only reason we came to Sydney for Christmas and New Year, but it was one of the reasons, and was it worth it? Yes.
