Harrietville (Bluegrass Festival) 15 - 17 Nov 2012

After stopping at Benalla we headed for Harrietville through the wine country surrounding Myrtleford. We could feel the temperature drop as we headed towards the mountains. We made a detour at Milawa to go to our favourite cheese factory and pick up some delicious ‘smelly cheese’ (Heather had to double bag them) before arriving at Harrietville. This is a small village nestled into the termination of a valley surrounded by steep wooded mountains. In the winter this is a favourite spot for people to stay when skiing at Mt Hotham but in the summer it reverts to a sleepy little village. Not that there has been much summer this trip. Just when we think it is finally getting warm, there is another cold snap and we are back into our winter clothes! Harrietville hosts the annual bluegrass festival in a local park. It is only a small festival, as accommodation is tight and there is only one venue operating at a time. This is our first bluegrass festival and we didn’t know what to expect, but so far everyone seems friendly, with 4 fingers on each hand and no one seems to be married to their cousin. The festival kicked off with a concert on Thursday night. The highlight of the evening was an American group called Redline that played some terrific music from the south-east of America. They had a banjo player that made the strings fly – he was moving his finger so fast that his hand was just a blur. The next day we decided to take a drive up to Mt Hotham to look at the view. The road was windy and steep, but we first thought we would be at the top soon. However every time we got to a top of a ridge the road kept on climbing. We stopped to look at a Woolybutt forest and then continued up the mountain. We were reward with some spectacular views of rolling mountains stretching towards the horizon. We also discovered Hotham Alpine Resort – a deserted village with about 100 lodges just waiting for the ski season. There were some large patches of snow that hadn’t melted and we had fun throwing snow balls – even put 2 in the freezer for Xavier to throw at dad. We worked out when we got back that we had driven up about 1400m to the top of Mt Hotham at 1850m – the Blue Mountains is only 800m high. The music started in the afternoon went into the night, but we didn’t stay to the end as it got really cold – wouldn’t know it was mid November! Overall we enjoyed the festival and learnt a lot about bluegrass music. While there was some music we didn’t like. Overall we felt it was like a folk festival and we will have a greater understanding of the music.