Road trip to Bellingen
Aug 7, 2011 • Nick Payne
The weekend before last I took Friday and Monday off and headed up to Bellingen to see our dear friend Scott Collins.
Here's some photos and video from the trip.
Thursday 28/07
Hit the road from Sydney around 4pm. Spent a good hour in traffic just trying to get out of town!
Arrived in Bellingen about 10:30pm to a warm welcome and a raging log fire.
Friday 29/07
Breakfast and then walk around town and then spent the afternoon working up songs for a set at the Lodge 241 Cafe. The cafe runs "Friday Folk" every friday night.
They made us feel very welcome despite the late redaction to the blackboard out the front to correct a minor mistake.
We were joined on double bass by the local mechanic Will who played great - thanks Will!
Following on from us locals Kym Pitman and Vic Manuel from Trunk Road played. I was absolutely blown away by the playing of these guys in particular Kym's song takeaway.
I'm looking forward to heading back with Lyn sometime and playing again for these guys at this great venue.
Saturday 30/07
Spent the day working on Scott's song Show Me the Right Way. Had heaps of fun recording hand claps and multi-part gospel harmonies.
After that... dinner at the pub!
Sunday 31/07
Drove up to Dorrigo for breakfast.
Afterwards I showed Scott the site for the Dorrigo Folk and Bluegrass festival. Both Scott and Dear Orphans are playing at the festival Octover 21-23. Read more at www.dorrigofolkbluegrass.com.au.
We then stumbled on the site for the Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum. The museum is not yet open as they need to spend another massive amount of in order to satisy council requirements. They have one of the most comprehensive railway collections in the world including 67 carriages. They are staffed by volunteers and as you can imagine, are struggling to raise the money they need to get the museum open. As a result all we could do was look from outside the fence, but were nevertheless amazed at the sheer amount of trains and carriages we could see. Scott is hoping to film a video clip for his song Big Train here someday soon.
On the way back down the mountain I insisted on touching the Bellinger River so we took a detour off the main road and found a wooden bridge and a place we could scramble down to the river. The water was clear and large fish were visible.
Having arrived back in Bellingen Scott checked his email to discover that the Dorrigo Folk in the Round jam was happening the same afternoon. So back in the car and back up the mountain we went to enjoy a laid back afternoon jamming with the locals.
Sunday night there were fireworks at the Bellingen showground.
Monday 1/08
Time to head home :(
Farewells were said and then I hit the round around 10.
I took it easy and detoured via Foster/Tuncurry and drove through the great lakes - Wallis Lake, Smith Lake and Myall Lake. Just south of Foster I headed up the top of Cape Hawke to get 360 degree view of area - absolutely beautiful!
I arrived home safely around 7pm and look forward to heading back up that way for the Dorrigo Folk Festival and hopefully around Christmas time to play some more shows up there.
Nick