Day 32...Global Gathering oh yeah!-28th July

Woke up feeling like death and took off from Holyhead and that dreaded hotel as fast as we could. Drove through the guts of Wales and we didn't really stop till we got to Stratford - upon-Avon. Or more specifically the hotel in the town next door, Leamington Spa.

Rattles was already there and the room was pretty good with a king bed for us and a double pull out for Rattles. The Chief has been travelling around Europe before we left, doing the Finnish baseball tournament and has had some pretty wild drinking stories. We chatted with him for a while then figured out the best way to get to Global Gathering. Global Gathering is a big dance festival in an airfield with all the major dj's you could possibly imagine. The best way for us to get there that day was to drive. The festival was in an airfield tucked away in isolated farmland and we got there via a small farm road. It was so cool there - people were camping around the outside, hundreds and hundreds of them. Inside were massive dance tents and rides. It was like a big playground for grown ups. About 50,000 were there like a Big Day Out crowd but the ambience was all pure dance. And everyone was british. (Althought we did see a few all black t-shirts).

The fluffy raver socks were in force, and so were the cyberdog stuff (the stuff we saw at that store in camden in london. ) There were also more older folk and hippies than expected. Dance music is more of a way of life here than a subcultre in Australia. There was a big stage where Sasha was on, so we danced there. They had dumped several tonnes of sand there to make it like a beach, so the british were fully excited and taking of their shoes and getting into it. The three of us gold coasters thought they were amateurs and tried to find a clump of grass for easier dancing! We drank and danced and watched the sun go down. It was so much fun! I bounced around and listened to the British accents and danced with nathan and rattles. It felt so great to be at an awesome event like that, and I also thought about the Celts and the Picts seeing a sunset just like this one only 4000 years ago.

The DJ's on today were: Groove Amarda, Pete Tong, Sasha, Daft Punk, Tiesto, Deep Dish, Steve Lawler, Krafty Kuts, etc etc. You can see the pics on www.globalgathering.co.uk
Deep Dish did a cracking set but by Tiesto we were pretty tired so sat on the side for that one. I thought he did a pretty simplistic set and used the standard Deliriums "silence" which was a cop out in my opinion, but the crowd went nuts.

We finished up at 2am and walked back to the car. I went cross-country through some bushes and some nasty plant stung my hands and knees through my jeans!

PS: Its the 28th of July - happy one month anniversary for travel!!!