THE mercury is set soar this weekend and the festival’s early-birds are doing their best to make sure they don’t become roast chooks before the event kicks-off.
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With temperatures tipped to top 40 degrees on Saturday, it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for first-time camper Brent Bullock.
Mr Bullock was a former local but this year will be his first festival as a Riverside camper.
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In years gone by, he was a chef at the Longyard and spent most of his previous festivals toiling away over a hot stove.
“I’ve been coming here for years and years but I used to work through the festival,” Mr Bullock said.
“As a chef, you make meals day-in, day-out and you might get a few drinks and see a band.”
He said seeing Daryl Braithwaite was the at the top of his to-do list this year.
The laidback lifestyle of the makeshift Riverside camping grounds moves a lot slower pace than Mr Bullock’s previous experiences of the 10-day event, where he could be helping make “a thousand meals a day”.
“That was crazy-hectic but it was a good atmosphere and kept you going even though you were doing 12 hour shifts,” he said.
He’s hoping his open-air tarp tent attached to his Commodore will provide enough shade and respite from the weekend’s wicked hot-spell.
At the very least, it’ll be “be a good view for the cricket” played at Riverside on Saturday.
With his experience as a local and festival worker, he said he’s seen the event change a lot over the years and thinks Brisbane St should be closed-off again.
“I think they should close [Brisbane St] back off and do a bypass around it and go Calala Ln or up around Jewry St,” he said.
With camping spots slowly getting snavelled-up, Nundle man, Kyle Ting, pulled-in to see what the fuss was about and to have a kip in the shade.
He may have looked like another camper as he dozed-off in the back of his ute, but he was just resting after a drive back from Narrabri, following a year droving across Queensland and NSW.
“I’ve been out helping dad on the farm and I was a bit buggered after my drive,” he said.
“It’s not too bad I suppose.”
While he was Nundle-bound, Mr Ting said he’d sure to head back down the hill during the festival where Nathan Griggs’ whip-cracking shows would be the top of his agenda.
Crews also put the finishing touches on one of the city’s first reverse vending machines at Riverside near Bridge St