Gympie Muster 26 – 28 August 2010

While we were enjoying our time by the water, we decided to make a run for Gympie to catch up with Kerrie and Di at the muster. For us it was a long drive, (the last 20km along a rough, dusty track), but when we found the festival site, they wouldn’t let us go into the campground until the next morning – we were not impressed!! Luckily, we were able to turn around and we headed back along the track until we found a campsite in a forest reserve. This was the area where Jim would have been involved in timber cutting. Early Friday morning, we bought our tickets and drove in to look for a campsite. There were thousands of people with all sorts of weird and wonderful campsites. Luckily, we were able to squash in next to Kerrie and Di as we wouldn’t have found a spot otherwise. The Gympie Muster is predominately a country music festival and we were not sure what to expect once we got inside. The organisers had set up about 10 stages in the middle of a forest reserve and there was plenty of variety in the music. While there weren’t many Dry-as-a-bones, there were lots of 10-gallon hats and young blokes in blue singlets, with a XXXX in one hand and a Bundy in the other! However, in spite of the mountain of empty cans, everyone seemed in good humour and ready to enjoy the music. One of our early highlights was hearing Harry Manx, a Canadian blues singer who we had caught up with on a previous tour. He has a voice half way between Dylan and Cohen and the most soulful lyrics and an insightful quote on the blues - “We’re not happy til you’re not happy!” We enjoyed wandering around, listening to the music and ended our night in the blues tent with Glenn Cardiner. The next day we wandering around again and caught up with John Williams and ended up listening to Jimmy Barnes from our campsite! After a Sunday morning catch-up with Kerrie and Di, we set off for Redcliffe.