Can´t get much better than dancing in the Australian sun with an ice cold beer in your hands!
When I first came to Australia, I arrived in Cairns, where I ended up staying for about three weeks. Cairns is on the north end of the east coast and pretty much a little party / tourist city by the sea. I´ve been partying a lot and burned through my money fairly quick. Once I´ve only had like 200$ left, a German guy that I met there gave me the contacts of a banana farm near Mission Beach, which is only about two hours away from Cairns. Luckily it all worked out and I worked on the banana farm for three months and stayed in Mission Beach for 4 months in total. I have a lot of stories of that time in Mission Beach which I will tell another time though.
About 2 weeks before I would finish working on the banana farm I contacted a mate of mine that I knew from Germany, who was also in Australia. His name is Leo and he was staying in Melbourne at the time. Leo told me about this amazing Psytrance festival called “Maitreya” that would take place in the Australian Outback in a few weeks (early 2013). He planned to go there in his Mitsubishi camper van.
I´ve been working like a dog for the last three months and saved some good money. Obviously it didn´t take me long to think about it as soon as the lovely smell of adventure and freedom finally entered my nostrils again.
The next day I booked the Greyhound Mission Beach - Cairns, where I would stay the for weekend, in a party hostel called "Asylum". Then a plane ticket Cairns - Sydney, where I stayed for like 10 days. (Nearly missed that flight to Sydney because I´ve been partying till 4 am the night before and had to get back up at 6 am)
And last but not least a plane ticket Sydney - Melbourne plus the ticket for the festival. (Actually really missed the flight this time because I was so hungover that I was late and also went to the wrong terminal :-D They booked me on a flight 5 hours later for a 100$ extra, so it didn´t hurt too much..)
Once I made it to Melbourne, Leo came and picked me up from the St. Kilda tram station. He was living in a shared house with a few other people close to Chapel Street. It was already quite late, so we only had a few beers and some good laughs, before we hit the sack.
The next day was the day that both of us have been waiting for so eagerly! We packed the van and drove to Chapel St. to get some food for the festival. And beer of course.. lots of beer actually.. and some liquor..
The festival was located in the middle of nowhere and we didn´t have a GPS. Took us about 7 hours to get there and arrived in the setting sun.
We found a camping spot next to a lovely Australian couple that took really good care of us for the next few days and actually drove a similar van like Leo. We quickly set everything up, packed some beers and went to the dancefloor.
The first night was actually really messy and we woke up really hungover and sweating from the sun that was already burning without taking any concern to our condition. Andre, the Australian Guy, had an "Esky" with him, which is pretty much a cool box. In the early mornings of the festivals, the crew drove around and sold packs of ice for like 5 $. Andre must have stocked up while we´ve still been asleep, because when we finally got out of the van, that has turned into a sauna by now, he offered us an ice cold beer. There must be a god! The second can was downed shortly after and the hangover was gone!
The sun out there is definitely something else. It´s so burning hot that during the day you are constantly trying to find some shade. That´s not so easy as there are not many trees out there.
And then there are the flies. Those annoying creepy little aggressive flies… lots of them..
They are trying to get into every hole on your face and I swallowed more than a few. As soon as it gets dark they are gone though.
At noon the vibe on the main floor got better and better and we´ve been dancing till late night. I was sleeping outside in the sand that night, in front of the van. I didn´t want to wake up in a sauna again. Instead, this time I woke up because a fly was crawling up my nostrils!
The last day was really really special and simply MAD! I´ve been to a lot of psy festivals in Germany but the crowd in Australia is just so different. Everyone was dressed up in funny costumes and absolutely going crazy! Over the main floor there was a sprinkler system installed, to cool the people down a bit. Because of that the ground was really muddy on the last day. People where just playing in the mud, completely covered in mud and throwing mud at everyone who remained clean till that point. I was in tears because I was laughing so much!
We drove back Leos house in Melbourne the next day. I haven’t had any plans at all so I was staying the night and wanted to figure out everything else the next days.
To be continued…
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for more story’s and let me know in the comments if you liked it!
