We left home early last Wednesday morning with all roads leading to
Harrietville in Victoria's North East, for the 2009/21st Bluegrass Festival.
When meeting long time friends Loretto and Jeff at Yea for morning coffee,
(having recently expressed their interest in joining us for this years Bluegrass Festival),
we found them to be looking forward to the coming days as much as we were.
After our short coffee break at Yea, we headed towards Mansfield for lunc
before detouring (about 6km) some 40km further on,
to have another look at the always interesting;
Powers Lookout
Driving on via Whitfield/Oxley/Myrtleford/Porepunkah, to Bright,
(where we stopped to get our provisions for the days ahead),
we arrived at Harrietville around 5.00pm and made our way to Camellia Lodge;
which was to be our home for the next few days.
On Thursday morning we went across to Mount Beauty,stopping for a coffee break at Sullivans Lookout;
from where we had a very clear view over the Mount Beauty township,
before continuing along the Kiewa Valley Highway to
Myrtleford/Bright/Wandilagong/Harrietville.
After lunch we collected our festival wrist bands and took time to study the
weekends program which would determine our activity for the next three days.
The three day Friday-Saturday-Sunday Festival commenced for us on Thursday evening,
when we were entertained by visiting (USA/Canada) Bluegrass Band; Hungry Hill,
followed by our favourite Bluegrass Parkway (WA),
whose performance of a fascinating mix of archival footage combined
with their live performance, brought the house down so to speak.
With Friday morning the only free morning remaining,
we went "up the hill" to Mount Hotham,
Last remnants of spring snow on Mount Hotham
before venturing back to Harrietville for the afternoons entertainment.
The heavens well and truly opened during Saturday and Sunday,
but with our "home" less than 300 m from the venue,our enthusiasm,
(and that so it appeared, of all who were at Harrietville),
was in no way dampened for the remainder of the festival.
Then after three days and four nights of superb entertainment,
including the very popular Gospel Music on Sunday morning,
(where I was a more than willing participant in the harmony workshop),
another great Harrietville Bluegrass Festival was over,
with a good time had by all.
To simply say that we "enjoyed" this years
Harrietville Bluegrass Festival
would be underselling at it's best.
Harrietville Bluegrass Festival
would be underselling at it's best.
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