So I just went to an awesome music festival called rocking the daisies. I’m a huge fan of music…especially live music. So a whole weekend of it = happiness.

Anyway, the festival was on Cloof Wine Estate in Darling. Such a beautiful place. Surrounded by mountains and a whole lot of greenery. There’s a dam on the farm, and on the one side they had some sand, turning it into a beach.

We arrived there just after 2 I think, and set up our tents. And then chilled back with some wine and waited for the music to start. We got there purposefully early cos we wanted to make sure we got a good camping spot. Anyway, we ended up getting a place not too far from the main stage, and very close to the Daisy Den…which was amazing.

The Daisy Den is a haven for girls. You walk in and there are couches and bean bags and chill spots through out the marque. It’s all pink and orange and lime and other such fun colours. And against the walls are vanity mirrors were you can do your make-up and there are blowdriers available and there are hair people so you can get your did and massage people…for when the great outdoors are too stressful. And then there are two nailpolish stands with a range of fun colourful nail polishes. There were fizzers and mints and other sweets on tables around the place. Then you go into the back and there are flushable toilets and really nice, hot, showers. And there are ladies standing back there whose job is to clean the toilet/shower as soon as someone walks out, so there is always toilet paper in there and the shower is always clean and wiped down. And of course basins with more mirrors and chandeliers above. Oh my word. So much of the pretty. So much of the pampering. And then you walk out and you’re back to roughing it out. I love being a girl!

Rocking the daisies is supposed to be an environment-friendly festival, so everywhere you go there are recycling bins – instead of just one trash bin, there were several in one place, one for plastics, one for cans, one for…other things…they didn’t allow glass on the campground so there wasn’t one allocated for glass.

Because they were aware how hot it was going to be, they had several “water zones” around the place. The first few people got a free water bottle, then those that arrived later could buy a bottle for R30 and then throughout the festival you got free cold, filtered refills of water on tap…which was very cool. I don’t generally drink water, but when it’s 30+ degrees celcius by 10 am, you forget about how much you hate the taste of water.

There was a huge food court with a bunch of food stalls – but fortunately my friends Korean and Andy had gone ahead and bought food to bring along so we didn’t need to buy food there. There were also a bunch of stalls selling other things. I bought a really cool cowboy hat at one of them.

There were several different stages, with different types of acts, so you were never short of something to enjoy. And if you really weren’t interested in the music or comedy or other things, you could always just go chill at the beach and oggle the lifeguards.

The only negative thing about the daisies: I have never in my life felt such an intense dreadlock-inferiority-complex. There were dreads of different lengths and colours and they were all better than mine. Granted I’ve neglected mine the last couple of months, but dude…i felt so much envy. On the positive side though, so many hot boys with dreads (:D). Like seriously though, RTD had the biggest collection of hot white boys I’ve ever seen – dreadlocked and otherwise. There were black guys too…like +/- 5 (excluding performers and security guards and cleaners)…

Anywho, I thought it was an awesomely organised festival…and such a beautiful venue. I was blown away. Will definitely be heading back there in the future.

For my thoughts on the actual music at the festival, please visit my music blog over the next few days. The posts will be up starting this afternoon.