Festival in Noosa

There were two festivals happening in this part of the world today and I greedily went along to both of them. Rather than send you pictures of fire trucks taking part in a parade or people eating hot sausages I am including a picture of one of the participants in the parade that marched up and down Gympie Terrace, a piper who played most beautifully while standing on the edge of the Noosa River, I have heard many pipers playing and have cringed at the sound but this fellow was really talented and really made the bagpipes sing.

The Noosa River festival probably included more than just the parade but after watching that I moved on to another small town a few kilometres further inland, called Eumundi. When we checked into our accommodation we picked up a copy of the local paper and discovered there was a body painting competition (among other things) happening over the weekend. The camera was brought into use for that! Actually I have more video shots of the event than still picture. I was using a little Panasonic mini DV camcorder and attached the gorillapod to it to give more stability for my hand held shots. Video seemed more informative for this event than still images. Here is one of the girls "almost" painted.

Returning to Noosa I made a detour and called into Tewantin Craft Market and there found this fellow with a snake casually draped around his shoulders. He was promoting himself as a speaker for schools and clubs but I managed to catch his attention and ask if he minded if I took a photo of him.

The snake is a Carpet Snake and a constricting snake. This snake is found in Queensland - I have seen one that was so large it almost reached from one side of a two lane road to the other. A couple of council workers came across it on its way and became impromptu policemen and held up the traffic until the snake was safely off the road! That was pre-digital camera era so I didn't travel with a camera in my bag!

AJ