FLOCHELLA!

It's a school day, a work day too... but we are all taking a holiday 'day' today and heading off to Rotorua for ....

FLOCHELL... it's a music festival being held at the Blue Lake in Rotorua.
It's a bit different from the normal music festival.
The bands set up on the foreshore and the audience are all floating on various floaties on the lake!

We gave Brylee and Griffin tickets to Flochella for Christmas.  Of course, we are going too, but we will probably watch most of the music from the shore.

As it's bound to be hot, we will end up in the lake at some point.  I can't wait!

I've never been to this sort of music festival before.  In fact, this is only the 2nd ever Flochella to be held in New Zealand.

So obviously we will be out all day!  I will do my best to take photos and update during the day.  

We are all excited... it's been a long time coming.

In other news, I got started on the stitching for the little Fox wall hanging last night.  Didn't get a whole lot done as we went to bed fairly early so we could make an early start today and not be tired.

I won't be showing the finished result as it's going to be a gift for a girlfriend.  I can show you after she gets it.

And that's all I have for now... we need to load the car, make sure we have everything we need for the day... feed the dogs, make sure they are comfy for the day too, and then... GO!

ONWARD....

We are here.... trying to upload photos but coverage is very patchy so not sure if I can... will keep trying.

ABOVE...queueing up. We got here around 9.45 so we got a free float ring. SCORE. the place is slowly filling up.




And now its raining! We came prepared with big plastic bags for our stuff. 

4.20 pm
... and we left. The weather was turning to crap and starting to rain again.

Rather than try to do a proper update on my phone... in the car I will wait till we get home.

6.25 pm:  Finally home.

Flochella:  If we had to do a critique of the music festival we would have to give it a 5 outta 10.
It was very well organised, there were no hooligans, it was a safe venue, but not really our scene.
The music was so-so.  
The weather was either blistering hot, or raining and cool.
The water was freezing to get into, but OK once you got used to it.

Poor Brylee got too cold, and never warmed up again after being in the water for half an hour.
She ended up with a sick headache and didn't feel well.

We left as soon as the buses started running people back into Rotorua... 4 pm.  Which was lucky as the weather turned to shit just after we left!

There would have been heaps of people lining up for the buses, which we avoided.

I have got a sunburnt face and arms.  Probably the fronts of my legs too.

Here's a few photos...

 ABOVE:  None of us went on it!
Plenty of people did, particularly from the 10 meter height.   Quite a few bombed badly and got bruised!

 ABOVE:  Before the headache hit.

 ABOVE:  Before it got really, really crowded.

 ABOVE:  There were so many people and floaties you could hardly move!

ABOVE:  See those 4 green things floating in the distance?  Portaloos!!!  For the people on the boats!  I have never seen portaloos on the water before.
They thought of everything!

The organisers certainly get 10 outta 10 for organisation and planning.

But we won't go again.  Just not our thing after all that.  Even Brylee and Griffin didn't think much of it ... shame really as we were all looking forward to it so much.  And it wasn't exactly cheap!

Oh well... it was an interesting day out, and the hot dog and chips were lovely!  lol

Our dinner tonight was Chicken and salads.  Very nice.  Now winding down for the day.