Up and at ‘em early this morning, well early for Dave and I
– 7:30am (Rob wanted to get going at 4am but that would have really thrown off
our European sleeping schedules). We hit the road heading North bound for
Germany’s Bavaria for the long awaited Oktoberfest adventure. Belinda and Rob
accompanied us for the trip and would be camping for the most of the time we
would be in Munich too.
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| Belinda and Rob getting into the spirit |
The trip was fairly easy and although we didn’t end up
leaving until just before 9am we still managed to easily get side by side space
at Camping Thalkirchen – lucky we changed our plans to a mid week arrival!
All settled in it was time to head to the festival to see
what all the fuss was about. The camp ground had a bus running every 30misn
dripping everyone off right near the festival entrance. Just arriving in town
you could feel and see the atmosphere with over 50% of people dressed up in
tract – traditional Bavarian outfits, Lederhosen leather pants for boys and drindels
for girls.
WE were amazed to see the whole place , which is huge,
covered with rides, sideshows and fairyfloss, sausage and burger stalls and of
course the plane hanger sized beer tents.
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| Getting ready for the fun |
We had a bit of a walk around before deciding to try our luck
getting a seat inside the Hacker Pschorr tent. It had a great atmosphere with
100’s of tables around a band in a gazebo grandstand in the centre.
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| Each tent had a team of draft horses to pull their beer carts |
We found a table to ourselves after a few failed attempts at
asking to share, on the mezzanine level and ordered ourselves some beer. We
watched a guy (who we later found out was an Aussie named Hamish) skull 3 beers
in around 10 seconds each over the course of around 1 ½ hours – we were very
impressed.
As well as getting introduced to the traditional Oktoberfest
beer drnking songs, most we had no ideas what the words meant but they all
ended in “PROST” (cheers!) and much clinking of glasses.
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| Carrying 7 beers... no problem |
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| Dave, never one to do hints by halves |
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| The Gang |
At 5pm they emptied the tent and opened it for those with
dinner reservations only, so we found ourselves once again wandering the
carnival streets.
We headed into another of the big beer tents – Lowenbrau.
This tent was completely packed and we thought we had no chance of getting onto
a table… until we found the Fanatics (Aussie touring group, always at the
footy/cricket/tennis etc dressed in yellow) who let us share their table to
order and pay for drinks – you must be seated at a table to order and pay for
drinks so seats are important!
The band here played traditional German songs as well as
more mdern songs. We had an absolutely fantastic nigh dancing on the seats and
tables until 10:30pm when the tents close up for the night
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| Settling into the Lowenbrau Tent |
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| All smiles... |
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Our new friends - Dave went to school with the girl and the guy we named Psychic (My name was Ninja)
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| ...and then the night starts to get a little blurry |
In the end the beer was calling so all
dressed up we headed to the Thresienwise grounds once again. We had all been
happy to find that entry is free but Stiens or masses cost 9€10 – you pay the waitress the full 10€ to ensure she keeps coming back to serve you. Unluckily Il goes a
long way and you don’t need many before your singing along to all the German
songs like a local.
