Camping festivals and Confest 50th Anniversary
Our first camping with our campervan, and we slept every night under the stars ✨
Just before Covid hit, I discovered the magic of camping festivals in the Australian bush. I feel like my camping festival history is very short as I only managed to get to 3 before the whole world shut down: my first one was Burning Seed (a small local version of Burning Man), followed by one night of craziness at Meredith Music Festival, finishing with autumn ConFest. The vibes of all 3 were very different, but I felt like ConFest had a special kind of magic.
We’ve been busy overseas and having kids over the last few years, but coming back to Australia our big goal was to go together to a camping festival.
What is ConFest?
ConFest stands for Conference/Festival which sums up the nature of the event. Anyone can host a workshop in the various spaces set up on the large, beautiful bush block. The festival is for exploring ideas, new ways of thinking, living and relating to each other.
The site since 2006 is a massive space next to the Edwards River near Moulamein, NSW. Festival-goers have the option to bring a camping set up or to camp in the forest under the eucalyptus trees.
People set up various theme camps in the trees or in the open plane. Camps include AcroTown (for acrobats), Open Stage (for free concerts), Tranquility, Life Drawing, Nudies, Arts, and plenty that I didn’t even have time to visit.
Out in the open, there’s a huge sand circle for fire twirling, a market, food stalls, a chai tent, a silent disco, and Gypsy Kitchen, where anyone can go to cook a plate and share a meal. Walking around with the fires glowing and the stars overhead felt like stepping into one of Sheherazade’s tales.
My two ConFests
It was 2019 and I tagged along with a group of people, some who I knew and some that I was meeting for the first time. I’ll admit, I found the whole thing a bit challenging. I was going through a life transition and ConFest brought lots of big emotions to the surface.
It’s been 7 years since then, and my life has changed a lot. I’m no longer the 29-year-old living in Fitzroy and working a full time job. Now, I’m a married mum of two young kids living between French Polynesia and Australia.
This time, we left our kids with the grandparents and hopped into our new (to us) van, picking up another festival-goer on the way. I didn’t have too many expectations about this ConFest, I just wanted to go with the flow.
River swims and hot showers
One of my favourite memories of the last ConFest was waking up at dawn with the cockatoos screeching overhead, walking to the river and jumping into the icy cold water. Afterwards, I’d warm myself by the fire before searching out breakfast.
This time, I did the same. The sun was rising pink and gold and misty, and I was one of only a few venturing into the water so early. The luxury? They’d set up fire-powered hot showers just next to the little river beach.
As the day wears on and gets hotter, the beach becomes packed with bodies in the river, sunning on the sand, huddling around the fire, or visiting the steam room, hot tubs and mud pit. With all the amenities, it’s almost like a lo-fi wellness retreat!
Sleeping under the stars
We drove up with our van fully expecting to camp in it. We brought sheets, a duvet, pillows and everything. Funnily enough, we didn’t spend a single night in there, instead camping on a mattress under the trees.
Our friends were forest camping so we decided to join them. The problem? We weren’t quite organised enough to buy a tent before we left. We had a vague hope that one of our friends would bring one for us, but he arrived and alas, no tent.
The first night I was a little nervous, but I ended up enjoying our setup. The moon was full and so bright that I needed to cover my eyes to sleep. The stars shone through the gum leaves, swaying in the wind, lulling me to sleep. I woke a few times to sounds in the night (like a loud, hissing possum) but was mostly warm and cosy until the sun rose, the sky lightened and the birds started their dawn chorus.
It was all well and good until the second last night when I woke up in the middle of the night with rain on my face. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to shift everything under our friends’ awning and we stayed dry until the sun came out.
Making art and music
Two of my favourite parts of the festival were the creative spaces and stumbling across live music everywhere we went.
The Life Models’ Society set up a life drawing tent which had life drawing pretty much all day, every day. I went to two sessions, one tutored and one untutored, and was so happy to have uninterrupted time to draw. I passed by the craft tent for a crystal macrame workshop with Dutchies Delights, and planned to go do some painting in one of the other tents but ran out of time.
The music was another highlight. Everywhere we went there were people getting together and jamming. Last time we spent many hours at Open Stage listening to bands, soloists and poets. This time, we dropped in on lots of informal jams including the Space Stage at Arts Beach, and campfire singalongs at Gypsy Kitchen.
Then there’s Spontaneous Choir and the tunnel of love, which has to be experienced to be believed.
Clothing optional
One integral part of ConFest is that it’s perfectly acceptable to walk around nude, partially nude, fully clothed, in costume, or caked in mud from the mud pit. As a family friendly festival, you’ll see all ages, from the little kids running around in their birthday suit to the old, grizzled hippies who’ve been coming every year for 50 years. The variety of shapes, sizes and forms is astounding.
Seeing the little kids running around made me miss mine, and it would have been nice to bring them, but I also really enjoyed a childfree holiday.
My poster trying to sum up all of the above
ConFest is entirely volunteer run, from the planning and marketing through to cleaning the drop toilets. The media team were asking for posters to help promote the festival ahead of time and I put my hand up to help. I had fun trying to cram everything in ConFest into an A4 page. Check it out below!
