Weird Weekend in 2006 and the 2013 Tasmania Thylacine Expedition

Tomorrow, I go to Tasmania for the first time ever and its not to sightsee, be a tourist or visit friends. I am going there for a reason. A CFZ expedition is going to hunt for the Thylacine.

We may never see one, never find evidence of one, but what the CFZ do best, is make the effort to go at their own expense. My friend Richard Freeman goes on expeditions every year (sometimes twice a year) to some remote part of the world looking for things - be it the Orang Pendek, Almasty (a Russian bigfoot), the Mongolian Death Worm, or Giant Anacondas in South America.

Most of what Richard comes home with is eye-witness stories, footprints, scat, hairs, but no sightings or photographs. One sighting of the Orang Pendek occurred in the 2009 expedition, but it was not seen by Richard's team.

Our trip may turn up nothing, but at least we make the effort. And have fun doing it! I've been wanting to go on an expedition for years - since I met the CFZ crowd in 2006.

So I will be away from the internet and this blog for two weeks starting tomorrow. We are camping. I hope I have enough stuff and I hope it is not too wet. Cold I can put up with but not too much wet. I am pretty tolerant of weather though.

Below is my account of the 2006 Weird Weekend Conference, North Devon, mid August

I missed my morning train to Exeter St David, but luckily, one hour later, I was put on the 12:05. I connected at Exeter to Barnstaple. I had called Jon Downes and the CFZ crowd at Myrtle Cottage, letting them know, that I'll be an hour late, as they were picking me up from Barnstaple. I waited about half an hour, and I learnt that Lisa and Mark North were on their way. I did not mind waiting. I was too excited to care. Why be stressed when a fun weekend is imminent??

On arriving at Myrtle Cottage, I got to meet Jon Downes, Richard Freeman, Nick Redfern, Darren Naish, Ronan Coghlan, OllLewis, Lars Thomas, Larry Warren, and many others - Even Paul Cropper, a cryptozoologist from Sydney came round.

After I help set up some dinosaurs and a chupacabra in the marquee, Lisa and Richard drove me to my camp site, near their B & B. I set up the tent, then walked to the B & B and on the way met the campsite owner, a friend of Jon's who was also supposed to be coming to the cocktail party that night - he could not make it. I went to the B & B and Lisa and Richard had finished getting ready - we got to the party at 8pm and spent the night laughing, drinking margueritas, and telling morbid stories about cryptid sightings. I missed seeing the dragon pinata being bashed by the kids. Helen turned up - she is Steve's friend from Barnstaple and offered me her sofa couch (which I eagerly took up on the Friday night). I did not feel all that drunk after a while. There were Salty Dog drinks going around aswell.

I had a sleepless night in the tent - I got cold and wet, therefore did not sleep much.  At 9am I walked down the country lane, heading to Clovelly. I walked to a lovely church and its grounds. Devon seems so untouched. On my way back up the road, Richard and Lisa drove past - their B & B sits on a huge hill fort. Resident dog Winston took us on a tour of the hill fort - he actually walked around a set path - it was funny. A lots of the dykes were overgrown with bracken and brambles.

Crop Circles

We went to my campsite and I picked up my bag and we drove to Jon's at 11am. The rest of the day was taken up by chatting lazily, drinking tea in the backyard and eating BBQ cooked by Nick Redfern. A very smokey affair. I think a few of us were tired and hungover, in fact I know we were. But the burgers were great.

That night there were talks on Beast Gods of Ancient Egypt and India, Scandinavian Lake monsters
and Matthew Williams did his talk on Mystery animals and Crop circles. I learnt something interesting about that. I am sorry to say that he and his team made most of the great crop circles we have seen, but the weird thing is, that often they are not alone when they are making these crop circles at night...! At the end of the night I went to stay at Helens instead of wet tent.


Saturday

Paul Cropper

On Saturday, I decided to miss Richard Ingram's talk on the Fall of civilisations at 10:30am. The next talk that I saw was the Search for Camelot. The speaker kept asking Ronan Coghlan in the front row questions. Ronan knows more on Arthurian Legends.

Paul Crowther came next with the Beast of Bodmin moor - it was not an interesting talk, he was trying to be funny, but he was also rude, and Jon got angry with him after the talk. He was asked to leave the conference. Andreas Trottman did his talk on Lake Monsters and dragon legends of Central Europe.

Paul Cropper did a talk on an Australian Poltergeist story. This was a last minute lecture slot. Someone had pulled out. Firstly, Paul showed us some news breaks from Melbourne television, and other peoples footage of Big Cats and possible Thylacines in the wild. The poltergeist attack was from a house in Humpty Doo in NT. Paul and his friend went to witness a few events and write an article about it. They saw and experienced some weird things.

Jon Ronson (author of 'Men who stare at Goats') did an talk on Bohemian Grove - has anyone else heard of this? The pagan-like ritual that most of the rich leaders of the US attend in North California? (including Bush Snr and Jnr) Very strange. We watched some illegal footage of the ritual. It's on youtube.

Paul Cropper was up again for his talk on The Yowie - Australia's Bigfoot - This was a great talk that
I was looking forward too. Paul came from Sydney - the furthest travelled speaker - he may as well do two talks - they were both fantastic. His book is fantastic.

Nick Redfern did his talk on British security services spying on UFO researchers. It was a talk about conspiracies and how the government keep their eye on Ufologists.

CFZ awards were handed out to people who had provided excellent help over the weekend, and during the year. The final talk for the night was about this years expedition to Gambia to search for dragons and sea creatures. There was news about 'Ninki-Nanka' and large snake that is not recorded in the animal kingdon, yet, causes many people to believe they will die within 5 years of seeing it. Many of them did die. There were some great photos of the trip. Oll, Richard, Suzi, Lisa and Graham went on the trip.

Sunday
On Sunday, I made it in time to see Paul Vella's Bigfoot talk at 11.30am. What creeped everyone in the hall out the most were the 2 recordings of supposed bigfoot calls. One recording was very bizarre - it was obvious two were speaking to each other - the sounds were strange, but it sounded like words.

Impression of the Ninki Nanka

I missed the next talk Jeremy Harte's 'Drunken Dragons: Capturing the sozzled monster in fact and folklore' - it was actually about wildmen in historical documents

I next saw Chris Moiser's talk on the sighting of the Wrangaton Lion (a big cat sighting in the west counties in the 90's).

Larry Warren did his talk next on the Rendlesham Forest UFO sighting. As I had been to Rendlesham two months earlier, it was good to understand the location. And it was great to actually meet one of the witnesses at this WW. Larry is American, but lives in Liverpool. He showed us a US documentary about the Rendlesham Forest UFO encounter.

The last talk for the day was Ronan Coghlan's 'The Goatmen cometh...' with was enjoyable all round, as he is quite a comedian.

The final part of the night was Jon thanking everyone for their efforts, and as it was Jon's birthday in two days - a cake was brought in.

I had bought Jon's book 'The Owlman and others' and I had him sign it for me. Ronan had given me
signed copies of his two books that afternoon - a free gift! Larry even offered to give me a signed copy of his Rendlesham book too - he'd have to send it to me.
All in all, I had a great weekend and it was everything I hoped it would be - everyone was so nice and I felt like one of them - one of the CFZ team.

Nick Redfern and the monster of the mere

Berkeley Castle and the Mediaeval Baebes

 

A dream was realised on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of July, 2006. I got to see the Mediaeval Baebes, my favourite group, perform at the Berkeley Castle Joust in Gloucestershire. Not only that, I got to see one of the most beautiful Castles in the West. I have since discovered that my ancestors are from this area. I have very fond memories of this time in England, even though I was a little uncomfortable with my company where I was staying at the time.

Jul. 24th, 2006 at 9:41 PM

 

 



No traffic in Cambridge - feet only!

I had planned to meet my friend Anne in Oxford, and booked a train ticket for it, but the day before the trip, I heard from Anne who emailed me telling me she was staying near Cambridge instead, so I had to change the ticket for Cambridge to meet her there instead. It was Friday and a lovely sunny
day as I got to Cambridge and went into the city for over an hour before meeting Anne who was to pick me up from there. The centre of Cambridge is amazing, I remember wondering why I could hear everyone walking around, and realised that the silence of the centre of Cambridge was due to no traffic being allowed through. It makes it a peaceful place. Back at the train station I found Anne, and we began our journey to Cirencester in the West.
 

We drove south to the M25 - the London ring road, and got onto the M4. At one point we tried to stop in Reading, but did not find anywhere, and Anne, gave up, driving on to Cirencester. Four hours after leaving Cambridge, we got to Cirencester at about 7pm and booked into our Travelodge and ate at Little Chef. Anne felt terrible as she had not got much sleep, as she had met a lover on her journey.

We went to bed at about 9:30pm - my suggestion, and we slept, or simply rested, for 10 to 11 hours. On the Saturday morning we got up, felt better and ate pancakes at Little Chef. We drove onto Berkeley Castle near the River Severn to go to the Joust. It was another lovely day, overcast, but warm.

And when we turned up, we got very excited. There were bell tents everywhere, banners flags and so much colour, as a medieval fayre should be - not in a dusty, drought like Australia. People were dressed in period costume for the occasion, and it made me want to get back into re-enactment. We met some nice people who explained to us the history of the objects they had - mentioning we were students of medieval history got them worried, but we still don't know everything.

 




The Mediaeval Baebes

Everything we saw was a feast for the eyes. There were battles going on in a field almost all the time, some birds of prey on display and a joust was being shown at different times throughout the day.

Then the Mediaeval Baebes first performance was to be at 1.20, so we got front row to the right. I had to pinch myself often when I realised where I was and what I was about to witness. They wore mauve and they sang fantastically. It was so good to finally see them. I took a lot of photos and filmed a lot of songs, and when they finished their set, they told us that they are performing again at 5pm, all with a new set of songs. As soon as they got off stage, they sat down to do some book/cd signing, so we all queued up and I got out my songbook
which I had brought with me all the way from Australia and they all signed it, Anne bought a songbook there and got that
signed. I then got them to sign a postcard for Gemma, for all that she's done for me in the past few weeks, its the least I can do. Then I approached Marie Findley, the 'witty' one of the Baebes. I asked her to sign a post card for a friend of mine back home who loved the Ken Russell movie that she was in. She found that rather humorous.




signing my songbook

We saw falconry, archery demonstrations, and went for a tour in the castle. The courtyard is amazing, and we could not take pictures inside. The Castle is in such a lovely situation and the garden surrounding it is gorgeous! One of the bedrooms really struck me - it was such a romantic medieval style bedroom, exactly how you would expect a lovely bedroom to be. It was such I shame I could not take a picture of it. The interior of the Castle was the most beautiful I have ever seen, probably what everyone expects a lovely Castle to look like.



Courtyard of the Castle

We walked around the garden and enjoyed a drink and scones, before we made our way down to the stage again to watch the Baebes sing again, this time dressed in white and with a new set
of songs. We sat further away up the back. Their song 'How death comes' really hypnotised me, it was their dances and movements that did it. I was quite transfixed.





The Baebes in white

After a while, the day ended at 6pm and we moved our car from the event car park, which was in a field, to the public car park of the Castle. Anne had booked tickets for us to go to the Banquet feast and got a free glass of Mead, then watched a medieval dance group do some fantastic dances. We had front row view of the whole feast, will a prefect view to watch the entertainment that night, and to see the Baebes sing again. I let Anne sit front row. The food was great and so was the entertainment - all dressed 

dancers

as lords, there was an MC going by the name of Sir William, and two lords representing Lancashire and Yorkshire - the War of the Roses. And then there was Devilstick Peat the Fool in red and yellow, who juggled, did amazing tricks, and generally made us laugh.

The Baebes came into the tent before the second course. They wore their mauve again. They sang some of the same songs from that day - and they were fantastic. I thought it was great that I got to see them perform three times in one day.



Entertainers posing for my camera

The dessert comprised of jelly in a Castle mould shape. There were even fortune tellers going around the room, giving people readings - one who visited us was a geomancer.
The evening was very enjoyable, we were well fed and entertained - it was worth every penny.

I've been to many a medieval feast in my time, but nothing like one at a real Castle. Looking forward to visiting Berkeley Castle again one day. The Joust held at Berkeley has been cancelled since. I
believe the 2007 event was a wash out (cancelled due to floods - Devilstick Peat told me that 2 years later), so I was lucky that I went the year I did.

 

The Feasting Marquee

A dress on display
 

Joust!
 

 



Edinburgh Fire Festival of 2006

Originally published in May 2006, this is the first account I gave of the famous Fire Festival in Edinburgh, always held on 30th April.

Edinburgh Beltane Fire Festival

• May. 2nd, 2006 at 9:30 AM

Firstly, I must say that there is nothing like this in Australia, and Edinburgh prides itself on this famous and unique event. Altogether, it helps when you have so many people involved, and I don't think there are all that many people in Australia who would be involved, unless they make it a huge national event, and get hippy volunteers as well as pagans.

Philip mentioned to one performer that he had someone over from Australia, especially in Edinburgh for the event, and the reply was 'cool!' I did not see him talking to her, but I guessed she was in her early 20's just by the way she spoke! She was apparently painted blue.
It was weird to finally be on the hill in front of that half-built Greek temple - I call the 'columns' and to see the entire city around us watching the sunset. I went with Philip and Samantha (aged 5) and we met Philip's friends Scott, and his son Niko (Dominick) and Eileen (Scott's mother I think) and we stood around waiting for the sun to leave.

When it started, torch bearers came down the steps in the centre of the columns and made two rows on the steps. Then the drummers dressed in black and painted black faces. Then the May Queen's hand maidens dressed in white came down the steps with the Queen following. I could not see very well, and had Sam on my shoulders, but the procession began and disappeared. They did not come my way, but went around to the back of the columns. Sam and I then watched a huge red dragon bobbing its head around the bottom of the steps as well as a tall red lady with her arms waving around on sticks. There was even a red little pixie bobbing above the crowd, a very phallic little red pixie -who almost looked like a little demon. Sam and I then we around the back of the columns and found a fiery arch in which the Queen had passed through, but we missed that bit. Further along the path, we found what reminded me of a White Leafy Sea dragon type creature with long arms and claws, and glowing eyes that changed colour. We took photos of him and watched his accompaniment - people in white with flags doing a choreographed dance, while the dragon circled them.

Our next stop, was people painted green and with brown loin clothes and pants and they crawled around the ground, occasionally jumping up to dance - all done to loud and deep drumming. There was, scattered around, papier mache objects, which, after the people picked up, I realised were tree trucks, and the elements placed them back on and became trees again.

We still had not caught up to the May Queen and her retinue yet, I realised though that these small performance were performed in her honour, and I really noticed something else, when I came across Blue people - these were the elements. The blue people (obviously water) were not doing much when I saw them, so immediately Sam and I hurried on to catch up to the Queen. We saw her followers, but could not catch up to the Queen herself. There were too many people - the crowds were huge. The black drummers were following the white hand maidens, who was obviously following the Queen. Surrounding them were stewards with torches - guarding the retinue from the crowds.

 

The procession stopped to watch fire twirlers and a different silver dragon who looked like it had the head of a piranha but with long arms and spine - there were fire whips and I watched the fire whips come over, and, holding the dangling whip at the mouth of the silver piranha head, light the mouths that went up in flames! Watching a dragon with a burning mouths was fascinating.

Sam and I went to catch up with the procession, but climbed a small slope to join the crowd who were taking a short cut to the next performance - these were the red people, who I have seen on television before. They were completely red even painted matted hair, and they seemed to try to shock the Queen by pretending to indulge in sex and orgies - also rolling down this slope towards the barrier of white hand maidens. I finally saw the Queen closer and she just stood there silently watching. I then saw a Jack in the Green right behind her too, with antlers on his head. The drums were pounded loudly and the red people climbed on top of each other to form huge human towers. I saw further up the hill, waiting, was the red dragon, red lady and red devil/pixie. Then the procession moved on and this was when Sam and I ran up to find a spot for the Queen to pass right by us. She had a white face and white dress with flowers at the bottom of it, and a halo of flowers - mostly pink behind her head. She had a more flower maiden regal look, with a head piece that no one could mistake belonging to a queen.

She and her followers made their way to the small stage and four of her maidens crouched in each corner, with many of the elementals coming over - the Queen stepped up on the stage and spun in circles coming directly face to face with the Jack in the Green who suddenly fell down dead. Hand maidens picked him up and raised him above their heads and then placed him down again and removed the huge ivy head piece. The queen then circled him and raised him from the dead and he rolled around and began to dance wildly into a crescendo and then he was raised up as her consort and they stood at each corner of the stage to face the crowd with raised arms. They did not bow, but everyone cheered. Then the red people came and intruded, bring their red drummers with them, and began to fire twirl and make human towers again.

Further up on the slope behind them, a bonfire was lit and I only watched it from the distance, with the stage in front of me. This is pretty much where the festival ended for me. It begun to rain softly and Samantha began to whinge as we had lost Philip and co at the beginning. The temperature dropped completely and we got wet and cold waiting for Philip. We ended up over near an info tent with a blanket for Sam and a caravan to sit in, and a search party sent out for Philip, who came in due course. We left the Hill after 1am, Sam extremely tired.

Speaking to volunteers we discovered that 12,000 tickets were sold, but the largest event was 2001 or 2002 with 15,000 people attending.

Absolutely stunning performance - anyone should see it if they can make it here.