English Ale Festival: Late July

Cam & I joined a friends from work at the English Ale Festival up in the hills outside of Adelaide. The evening festival began with a parade. People dressed the same danced with sticks or handkerchiefs. Everyone was lead by torches since it was dark.




The culmination of the parade was a giant woman made of paper-mache. You can tell how tall she was, and we were a bit worried because of a little sprinkle. There were about 3 or so large spirits, but this one was the largest and most spectacular.




Most of the evening had a fire theme involved. The procession lead everyone to a large bonfire area. As we waited for the fire to start, there was a man spinning fire around on two chains. It was a dangerous activity, but he was very skilled.




The fire was lit by a flaming man made of string and moved by two people by sticks. It looked much better than this photo, but you can see them walking away from us around the circle. The man on fire burned all the way around the circle of people and then was thrown into the brush to start the bonfire. Merriment abounded with cheering and music. An interesting but fun July night.