Making Merry at the Medieval Festival
Inspiration can come from the most unlikely places.
Caboolture is an urban centre, on the outskirts of Brisbane, or the Sunshine Coast (depending on where you come from). A great spot. You’re a hop, skip and a jump away from the city, beach and Bribie Island, but also surrounded by paddocks, rolling hills and mountains in the distance.
It’s also home to the Urban Country Music Festival and was Keith Urban’s hometown for most of his childhood.
I have to admit I love (more than) a bit of country music but this isn’t why I’m suddenly talking about Caboolture.
The reason I’m feeling the love for Caboolture is because it hosts the Abbey Medieval Festival, which I visited last weekend.
The festival goes over a couple of weekends and features everything from jousting, banqueting, and fencing to medieval music, food and dancing.
The Abbey Festival is a delight for the medieval enthusiast, like me, as well as the hardcore re-enactors who live on-site in tents: dressing, eating and sleeping as if they were in medieval times.
Thanks to the festival I am feeling re-energised about my writing and editing.
This is the kind of place you will find a 6 ft 5″ Gandalf walking around casual-like, Game of Thrones inspired merchandise and delicious mulled wine.
The Festival boasts way too many attractions for me to list them all here. For me personally, I loved the archery and the joust. Before you ask, the horses were real, the armour was real and the jousting lances were as real as you can get without the possibility of causing a gruesome death.
It was a heck of a lot of fun and will help inform some of my medieval fantasy writing.
So after some making merry of my own at the festival, I am tackling my editing with new vigour.
Thanks to the wonderful people who run the festival each year and a shout out to Caboolture. You’ll see me again next year!
