Rainbow Serpent festival

In Australia, roadtrips are part of the daily life. You get treated to gorgeous landscapes, sunny days, starry skies and always something to look forward to at the end of a tiring trip. In our case, Rainbow Serpent festival was waiting for us, about 2000 kilometers from Byron Bay. And what a journey it was! Within the first hours, we got spoiled with double rainbows, lightning storms and a spectacular sunset. For two days straight we drove, sang, napped and stopped for coffee about 17 times. And there, in the Victorian desert, we arrived smelling like dirty hippies ready for a hell of a good time. Rainbow, we were ready!

the first thing I noticed was this festival was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Fifteen thousand dressed up people dancing around like one big colour explosion. From the jolly Gourmet Goons sporting enormous moustaches to overexited types dressed like the kind of clown you wouldn't let your kids near. After minutes of manically rifling through my floordrobe, I decided my wedding dress was going to be my festival outfit. BAM. Instant life enhancer! I got married for the fourth time, had a free coffee, worked all day in the Gourmet Goons' kitchen, danced in the dust, ran behind water trucks and all of that without getting the dress extremely dirty. I love being a bride! And I'm really good at it, too.

As the old saying goes, if you're tired of getting married and wearing your wedding dress 24 hours a day, you're tired of life. But it got hot. Real hot. Especially under a multi layer dress that has shoulder pads and fake boobs added to the design. It's a whole lot to carry around when temperatures rise over 40 degrees. So I bought two pairs of wedding hotpants. The saleswoman promised me my inner tigress would emerge and seduction would become my super-power. Also, I might get swamped by young men. After hearing that, I didn't even bother wearing a skirt, I just wanted to show my new undies to the world! I realised this festival might be the only opportunity to wear my underpants outside without being arrested. I was even working in the food stall, selling plates of kangaroo while wearing my wedding panties. And it was glorious! From now on, I vote for no pants weekends!

Baby burgers and moustached men

I don't know about you but I like my babies swimming in satay sauce. Welcome yet again to The Gourmet Goons' imaginary world where no one goes without furry upperlip and kangaroos are turned into tiny burgers covered in tomato relish. Something like heaven on Earth. In Darwin, to be more precise. Where the Darwin Festival attracted men with facial hair from all over the country and stalls selling food so damn good it couldn't be holy. I'm talking bearded musicians, baileys pancakes, moustached chefs and baby burgers ALL IN ONE PLACE. There is a God!

As unofficial spokesperson for Women Who Love Facial Hair and Good Food, I can say that the Darwin Festival is enough to make you camp out at the venue year round. When the festival was over, I spent countless days in a foetal position wailing. At first I thought it was a withdrawal symptom after one too many creme brulees, nutella pancakes and salted caramel ice creams. The fat kid inside of me and I mentally high-fived each other after this week of dessert extravagance. 

The reason I wanted to retreat to my room for a big old face-in-pillow kind of sob, was because I'm going to miss my favourite moustached men in Australia. The Gourmet Goons. They put a spring in your step, a twinkle in your eye, maybe even create world peace if given enough time. And they make baby burgers. Which actually is world peace in a bun.

Gooning about

Whenever I felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of beards on Bluesfest, I would run to the Gourmet Goons for my daily dose of magnificent moustaches. And when my face turned purple from dancing like the queen of boogie, they would calm me down with fabulous plates of kangaroo or tofu. If you are in desperate need of an extra pair of legs to dance with, awfully funky dress up costumes and food so good it makes the fat kid inside of you do push ups so it can eat even more, go see the Goons. They have a magic hat filled with recipes, rainbows and unicorns to make your life look all shiny. I'm not sure whether it was Jerry's 8-shaped moustache or Max' tight yellow Kill Bill outfit, but I can tell you one thing: I want to marry them both. And not just for the Australian passport.

Moustache fest

There are three things in life I can never get enough of: music festivals, great food and facial hair. When all of that comes together, there is no way you can wipe the ridiculously big smile off my face. WOMADelaide was like a dream coming true. I was working for the Gourmet Goons who owned a wonderful foodstall at the festival. Exactly, the guys with the furry upperlips who picked me up from Kangaroo Island. They served fabulous meals like kangaroo burgers, fish noodles and tofu with sataysauce I would love to take a dip in.

The Goons invited over some friends from Byron and all of a sudden I was living together with seven other cool kids. We shared a house and spent our days preparing food and drinking corona like there was no tomorrow. While chopping up strawberries and onions and all other vegetables and fruit you can think of, we danced around and sang along to oldskool hiphop tunes. And the best part of the job: we got to dress up like men, moustaches and everything.

No need to say I had the time of my life. Working hard but playing hard too. Let's not forget we were showing off our moustaches at one of the best world music festivals in the world. So after our shift we had time to get rid of our leftover energy by dancing to Jimmy Cliff, The Cat Empire and The Herd. Or just strolling about in our fancy shirts and ties.