Small Halls - Week One
I am so privileged to be on tour with The Festival of Small Halls, alongside Catherine MacLellan from Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are four shows in and find ourselves with an extra day off due to flooding around the hall at Marthaguy, NSW. I hope everyone out there is safe! I thought this would be an opportune time to share some images from the journey thus far.
I always intend to share more from the road but free time can be unpredictable and rest is always a priority. The Festival of Small Halls makes it so much more possible because we have scheduled days off and an amazing tour manager who does the driving (and so much else) to allow us to focus solely on the shows.
This is the 30th Small Halls tour, so the unofficial first show was a private event at this tiny church in Mount Mee to celebrate that milestone among many others.
The official first show was on Canaipa also known as Russell Island in Moreton Bay. The bay islands are very special and home to a wonderful community - I am looking forward to returning with my fishing rod.
The second show was in Irongate and this is the outlook from the hall. It’s hard to get a feel for it from a photograph but beyond those hills is a plain that stretches beyond the horizon - it’s like looking off the edge of the Earth.
Catherine is a Koala expert so she spotted this sleepy angel. There is a lot of important and at-risk Koala habitat in the Toowoomba region and I am honoured to have friends involved in conservation efforts up there.
Third show was in Talwood and apparently this is the first hall I photographed (sorry).
On the road from Goondiwindi to Bellata. It is nice to see everything so green after some good rain and being Spring there are sprays of wildflowers (and weedflowers) all along the roadside.
Bellata Memorial Hall - classic 50’s grotesque font and brick facade, incredible acoustic hall inside with an amazing timber floor.
Bellata was a special show, the community were very generous to us. A lady purchased one of my ‘Flourishing Heart’ t-shirts because she recently had a heart transplant! I hope her new heart continues to flourish (and I wish I got a photo with her).
The blessings of a day off - the opportunity to visit Kaputar National Park. I have a fascination with geology so I was excited to see this remnant of an ancient volcano. Beautiful columnar basalt formation (not rhyolite as I first thought) and pops of golden wattle amid the bush.
The shows have all been wonderful in their various ways. Each community has a unique character but also there is a shared love of rural living and the land. I am excited for the next leg as we begin to work our way North through outback Queensland. This is new territory for me and I look forward to sharing it with you at the end of week two.
If we’re passing near you, come and see the show!