As we made our way to Darling in convoy, birds-a tweeting, I wondered if we might have been ever so slightly hasty in our cunning quest to be first in the line for Rocking The Daisies. We had officially excelled ourselves and possibly even the event organisers, as we pulled up onto a vast empty field at 6 am, oh good, only four more hours until the gates were due to open. “Rather safe than sorry’” was squealed enthusiastically from the other car, filled with keeno’s- for lack of a better description, armed with their trilby hat’s and gladiator sandals, not to mention air pumps and energy bars.
After chatting for a little while about who we were most / least looking forward to seeing we find ourselves cheering for the ‘wheelbarrow boys’ as they pull up onto our vacant car-park. These nice (topless) young men pack all your gear into their wheelbarrows and manoeuvre these dodgy old contraptions around the tents to your chosen spot for the next few days, for a couple of bucks, we figured it was well worth it to conserve our energy for other, more appropriate endeavours!
Eventually, after twenty minutes or so of our best Bear Grylls/Ray Mears impersonations our tents were pitched and we gathered rather smugly around our architectural masterpieces and had a celebratory drink or two whilst we watched ‘men’ resembling lost sheep um and ah over their tent manuals – possibly shouting a friendly jibe here and there.
Faced with so many options, main stage, electro tent, comedy tent and even a ‘daisy den’ complete with manicurists and hair straightener’s there was much debauchery to be had. Although in theory, manicured nails and a sleekly styled hairdo are usually pretty high up there on a ladies list of priorities, this weekend had other things in store for us.
When in Rome…you do as the Romans do. When in Darling for rocking the daisies however, you get messy and dirty, learn to perfect the art of weeing in the bush and wake up the next morning with lumo stickers and flowers all over you that you have never seen in your life, laugh and then get ready to do it all over again!
Waking up on Saturday morning in what was once a tent and now our personal sauna, we dragged our sunburned bods and weary minds to the watering hole – a large dam swarming with beautiful people.
Soon, day turned into night and we found ourselves jamming at our trusty spot around the main stage, singing and dancing the night away – ‘making the circle beega’ before clambering through what felt like a sea of booby traps or an episode of Takeshi’s Castle aka tent pegs and ropes until we found our long lost campsite and boy were we glad to be home!
Sunday morning called for ‘hair of the dog’ as we marched on like soldiers through the wind and rain to the comedy tent where we stayed put apart from the odd trip to the food court and laughed our hangovers away.
Dismantling the tents was an absolute shambles to say the least and our ‘faithful’ wheelbarrow boys had scarpered. Let’s just say I almost took flight on the back of my tent. Nevertheless, we managed to pack our sorry selves, pegs and all back into the cars for a somewhat solemn journey home to Cape Town.
Rocking the Daisies will NOT be missed next year that is for sure!
