At 11:30 pm, a large gong sounds. All sound ceases. We sit in silence, reflecting on the events that 2019 brought and how we can take that knowledge into 2020. 125,000 festival attendees do the same, creating a deafening silence that is seemingly impossible to create with this many people in one space.

This is Woodford Folk Festival.

It’s unlike any large-scale event I’ve ever attended or, for that matter, even heard of. A quick search of the fest website and instead of ‘heavy rock’ or ‘hip-hop’ or ‘indie’, you find ‘meditation in motion’ and ‘circus cabaret’. It’s not strictly what one would call a ‘music festival’—it showcases many international musicians across a wide span of genres, but it’s really a cohesive celebration of this sort of hippie, yogi, peace/love/music sub-genre, a place where these people can come to be their most authentic selves for a week. Yoga and meditation classes are held for free throughout the day. There are workshops, including crafting your own leather sandals and molding an incense burner. Festival speakers cover such topics as using psychedelics to treat mental illness, blending your own essential oils, or any number of talks in the realm of ‘somatic mysticism’.

I watched the Briefs Factory comedy drag circus. I learned to dance the Palestinian Dabke and perform Japanese Butoh Dance theatre. I skanked to Fat Picnic’s ska tunes and watched, mouth gaping as Betty Grumble performed her feminist, ‘ecosexual’ vagina theatre show. I watched circus and cabaret performers, puppet shows, and aerial dancers. It was impossible to be bored.

The layout of the festival itself is enormous. I spent four days at Woodford and there was still more to explore. Art installations, street performers, and music flooded the streets. Independent artists sold bright, flowing clothing, Buddhist relics, gongs, incense, candles, crystals, tarot cards, and all of your witchy essentials. About half of the food stalls were vegan/vegetarian, and craft kombucha flowed like water.  

You won’t find many hotels in Woodford. The primary sleeping situation is tents and campers. I only attended four of the seven days of the festival, and those four days were all I could handle sleeping in the tents. The tent I rented was comfortable enough, complete with a futon bed so I didn’t have to sleep on the wet ground. The moment the sun rose every morning, however, I was greeted with scorching heat, making my tent unbearable until late afternoon each day when the clouds would roll in, making for a perfect post-lunch nap.

My tent neighbors were two Brazilians now residing in Australia. They’d attend the festival’s rowdier events at night but spent the vast majority of the day drinking gin in fold-out chairs in front of their tent. We got along just fine.

A loud roar emoting from the crowd at the bottom of the hill marked the end of the three minutes of silence as people begin to cheer and the music picked up once again. Our eclectic group sat and chatted for the next 25twenty-five. minutes or so, making small talk and getting ready for the new decade.

As midnight hears, we can hear the ska band below beginning the final countdown to midnight. We all stand in a small circle, drinks in hand, and chant along with the count to one.

Happy New Year.

Everyone begins kissing and hugging and cheering excitedly. We are quickly drowned out as a group down the hill begin howling like wolves at the moon.

“Are they naked?” a woman near me asks.

They sure are.

A group of fifty or so people were naked, howling at the moon. As soon as the music picked back up, they stopped howling and started dancing.

I had so many questions. Was this a planned event online or just an impromptu stripping? How do you find a group of fifty people in the middle of nowhere Australia who are all equally passionate about getting naked and howling at the night sky?

Alas, I’ll never know.

I came here expecting a large music festival – obnoxious drunks, bathrooms full of puke, aging hippies doing drugs trying to relive their glory days, late artists, and music blaring so loudly it bleeds into every stage. What I found instead was a welcoming tribe. I guess the wolf people found theirs as well.

A woman in my group hears my accent and hands me a letter. It’s addressed to ‘Someone looking for home’. Woodford has its own version of a post office, a place where people can write letters, not addressed to specific a specific person, but a specific type of person. Makeshift postal workers wander around the festival delivering these letters to people they believe fit the bill.

I said goodbye to my new friends and made my way back down the hill around 1:00 am. I was heading back to my tent when I ran into the Brazilians, who promptly shoved a glass of orange juice in my hand and began pouring gin into it. We were swept into a crowd that made its way towards the only stage now playing music, a DJ spinning tracks late into the night. I danced until I lost the Brazilians and their group of friends.

I wandered around the empty Woodford venue. Events go late and start early, so the venue never truly closes. People were scattered around the park, sleeping on benches and blankets. Around 3:30 am, the venue came to life again as everyone heads to the hilltop for the 4:15 am sunrise ceremony.

The sunrise ceremony was packed edge to edge with attendees. Some had clearly forgone midnight in search of some sleep and had come back to the festival in the morning. Most had clearly done what I had and kept the festivities going all night. As the sun rose over Woodfordia, Tibetan monks chanted through loudspeakers to bring in 2020. People continued filing in long after the monks had begun, looking for a place to meditate to the sounds, an act that will surely lead to accidental slumber. After thirty minutes, I could feel sleep taking over. I headed back to my tent, down the hill through Woodford’s abandoned streets as the sun rose and the monks’ chants echoed through the sky.

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The whole city is under construction, investing in infrastructure and rapidly expanding as they work to attract tourists and new residents alike. It’s much larger than I was expecting it to be—not quite the size of Sydney, but still full of skyscrapers (with many more under construction and soon to be open).

The architecture in Melbourne gives the city a unique vibe, featuring a combination of modern buildings such as the ACMI combined with old gothic and Victorian-style buildings such as St Paul’s Cathedral. It sounds like a mess but there is something about Melbourne that makes the two different worlds feel like they fit together.

Melbourne is well known for is its graffiti and street art. To support local art and culture (and to prevent illegal graffiti), Melbourne has designated multiple city blocks for the specific purpose of being used for street art. It’s created a thriving art community, and the same street will look completely different a week later as artists continue painting and repainting over old art.

There is no prerequisite for adding your own street art—it’s open to everyone—however, there is street art etiquette. If you’re going to paint over someone else’s art, you better make sure that whatever you put up is better. More well-known and respected artists obviously last longer than new or unknown artists, but in general, it seems that people respect the unwritten rules of the game. The street art scene in Melbourne gives the city a vibrant character and if I didn’t love it yet, I definitely did after taking a street art tour throughout the city.

Melbourne is known for having the best coffee in the world, and I had caffeine jitters for the majority of my time there. It’s also home to unique bars and restaurants.

Naked for Satan

This Basque restaurant is mostly known for its impressive rooftop restaurant and bar overlooking Melbourne’s CBD, but it’s the history and décor that drew me in. The downstairs bar features industrial lighting and posh, red seating. As you walk up to the next floor, the walls are lined with endless vintage photos of shirtless men and pinup models.

The restaurant gets its name from its founder Leon Satanovich, nicknamed ‘Satan’, who brewed vodka during the depression. His moonshining process was secret, so anyone who came to assist would use the catchphrase ‘Let’s Get Naked for Satan’, a reference to the fact that Satanovich would brew vodka almost completely naked during the summer months when the heat became unbearable. You can read the full story here: https://www.nakedforsatan.com/au/our-story

Polly Bar

Polly Bar is my favorite cocktail bar, period. If the cocktails weren’t so pricey (and rightfully so—they’re delicious), I could easily waste a day there. The bar features a combination of classy cocktails, cigars, and décor that would put Jay Gatsby to shame. Velvet red couches, garish wallpaper, and opulent, mismatched lighting make this place absolutely unforgettable. It helps that my gin cocktail, complete with smoldering sage, was just as memorable.

I was only in Melbourne for a few days, but that was enough time for me to fall in love with the city.

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