THE TURQUOISE TRUCK/TOURING

 As well as WA festivals, we apply to perform at Eastern States folk festivals every year. The festival seasons in which we are active are usually the January holidays and over Easter break. We often drive in our 60s model International twin cab truck refurbished completely by our friend Andy Scothern. It is painted “Tamar Turquoise”, a shade which is actually a 1964 Holden EH stock color.

On the back of the front seat is a blackboard for the girls to play games on or to draw (Scott's innovation). We all have spray water bottles for the fierce heat crossing the Nullarbor. The girls have iPods and sometimes we listen all together to music in the player in the truck .Louisa takes a lot of pictures, Scott makes a lot of sandwiches. Tempers flare and subside. In general we get along very well on the road. We camp in swags at sundown and make a fire and damper. Scott & Louisa trade off cooking dinner, the girls trade off doing dishes.

We have friends along the way whom we visit: Susan & Paul in Pantapin, WA; Susan's parents & brother in the Adelaide Hills, Neil & Judy in Melbourne; and the Rigbys in Maldon, Central Victoria. We play in Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Adelaide on the way across for extra performances and income along the way, and have made some friends there too.

 If we play at Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland or in Tasmania, we fly. We also flew to the Northern Territory in 2006 to play at the Top Half Folk Festival, out of Darwin on the edge of Kakadu National Park. For the National Folk Festival in Canberra at Easter we usually fly.

We have driven up the west coast in July several times and performed in Coral Bay and Exmouth. Virtually all of our holidays are working
holidays, to pay our way around. We also drive to Perth or Fremantle for gigs, thinking nothing of the 3+ hours it takes to get there--WA is a big place
and people drive huge distances as a matter of course.

 In rural WA, we do gigs in Margaret River, Nannup, Bridgetown, Augusta, Busselton, Albany, Mandurah, and even Esperance which is hours past Albany from here--6 or 8 hours' drive on the South Coast. Also Hyden in the remote Wheat Belt east of Perth-- we drove hours to get there in 2006 to perform, along with the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons, live-to-air on a 60th Birthday Celebration of The Country Hour programme on ABC Radio National. The Country Women's Association gave us a lovely extravagant afternoon tea. This was the 2nd concert Hyden had ever had in their Town Hall, the first being a Light Opera company performance the week before, for which the Hall was still decorated to the hilt for our benefit. People came from as far as the Rabbit Proof Fence to our concert!

We've toured in beautiful Tasmania in an old Holden borrowed from our friends in the Hobart area, Lindi & Bob. We love staying in their house and the quirky sense of humor that flies around the place. We performed at Margate (Hobart), Tamar Valley Folk Festival (Georgetown) and we busked
and did an emergency impromptu performance at Cygnet Festival when a band didn't show up for a concert spot. (We were there as punters). The girls were also attending the fiddle camp with teacher Chris Duncan near Cradle Mountain.

Our big truck rarely lets us down and we enjoy being a flash of turquoise on the horizon. Also it's very easy to see or find at a festival, for retrieving instruments out the back for the next thing happening.

To view the photos click on the thumbnails.