I planned to go to the Bikes, Blues, and Tattoos festival in Maitland today, so I got up fairly early, around 9am, and got ready.

I bummed around for a bit, and I ended up leaving around 11am.

I headed to Newcastle, as I'd arranged with my mate in Newcastle to pick him up, and give him a lift over to Maitland to the show.

I went up the old way, via the Pacific Highway, rather than the freeway, because I'm sick of the freeway, since I'm on it everyday.

I got stuck behind a few slow drivers, and it ended up taking me an hour and a half to get to Newcastle, so much for it being faster than going up the freeway, and having to get across the link rd into Newcastle.

I parked out the front of the building my mate lives in, and went up, and knocked on the door. He came and answered it, half dressed.

Hmm, obviously not ready. Terrific. I was hoping he would be ready, so we could just go straight across to Maitland, and the festival.

He was in the middle of sanding a set of book shelves in the kitchen, and some other similar work, he'd replaced the shelves under the sink, and had done some painting.

I sat down to wait, he finished up what he was doing, and then he went and had a shower and got dressed. After that, he picked up his tools that were all over the place, and grabbed his helmet (the one that was damaged when he crashed my bike).

He was in the process of getting a new phone, someone was coming to get the contracts and give him the phone (and one for his wife) today, so he told his wife that he'd signed everything, and that she just had to give them the contracts, and get the phones.

We went down and jumped on the bike, and took off. It was now nearly 1.30pm, and I'd wanted to be at the festival by now.

We went down the hill, and got a short while away from his house, and he told me that he'd left his money behind. Argh. I said I didn't care, and then followed it up by saying that I would lend him money, and he could pay me back when we got back here tonight.

I kept going, and then got to a set of traffic lights, and ended up waiting for about 5 minutes to turn, After that, I got stuck stopping at every single set of traffic lights on the way out of Maitland, it was so annoying.

We finally got out, and went across the pacific highway, into Maitland.

We rode to the showground, it said that parking was a gold coin donation. I grabbed $2 out of my pocket, and gave it to my mate, to give to the biker on the gates collecting the money, he gave it to him, but then he didn't flag me in, and someone said something about $20.

I couldn't hear properly, so I ripped off my helmet, and took out my earbuds (I'd been listening to my ipod on the way across) and then I was able to speak to the guy.

He told me that this was also entry to the show, and that was $20 each. I gave him a $50 note, he gave me my change (I paid for both of us, because my mate didn't have any money on him), and asked if I could park in there.

The guy made some smartass comment like "you want to park _that_?", because I'm riding a Yamaha, and not a Harley.

I rode in, and parked amongst the cars, not knowing what was going on. I locked my helmet on, and we wandered across into the rest of the show.

We looked at all the bikes parked in the middle on the way, there was probably 200 harleys, and a few other bikes amongst them, a few jap bikes, yamahas, hondas etc.

We walked to the beer counter, and got a couple of cans of bundy and coke.

We wandered through a pavilion, in there was parked a couple of supercharged cars. Big V8 engines, with braided steel cables and hoses, looked pretty cool.

We went through there, and on the other side was the food place. We got in the line to wait, since there was quite a few people trying to get food.

We stood in the line and chatted for a bit. When I got served, I got a steak sandwich. We wandered back over to the main area we'd come through before, near the main tent where the tables and chairs were, and the grass, and the stage.

We found an empty table, sat down and ate, and finished our drinks.

We went and looked at all the bikes again, because a few more had parked up since we got there.

We wandered back over near the main tent again, past some stalls, having a quick look at the stalls. We walked back through the pavilion with the couple of supercharged cars in it, and went into another pavilion. This one was full of bikes, they were in there for judging.

We walked through there, and looked at all the bikes, there were a few that really stuck out as being cool, the paintjobs were terrific, one was yellow with purple flames on it, another was a terrific orange, and another was a really cool lime green.

We wandered back out of there, and back to the stalls. We had another quick look at them, and they announced a tattoo competition.

We went over and sat on the grass, and they had a few people go up on stage to show their tattoos, it was the blokes first, so I didn't look to closely at that, they all looked pretty much the same, just covered in tattoos.

After that, was a women's competition, only 4 women got up there, and they were all pretty rough looking.

After that, a band started up, so we sat and listened to some blues for a bit.

We wandered back down, and looked at the bikes for judging again, and we voted on them, because one of the awards was a people's choice award.

We wandered around a bit more after that, we'd had a few more cans too.

I went back and looked at the bikes parked again, and I was getting a bit hot, I was sick of walking around wearing my jacket, because it was too hot. I went back, and I moved my bike over to where all the other bikes were parked, instead of parking in the car section.

Once I'd done that, I took my jacket off, and stuck it on my bike, and we walked back over to the main area again.

When we got back over, there were 3 chicks wandering around with a 4L bottle of Beam, and selling raffle tickets to win it, I bought a ticket, and my mate did too.

We went and sat on the grass again, and listened to some more blues, my other mate who'd been planning to come up there today (and to go to the computer fair tomorrow) called me, he said he was leaving, and wanted to know how to get there.

I gave him directions, he said he'd probably be there in about an hour, and I got off the phone.

We listened to so more blues, and then wandered through the stalls again, having a better look this time. One place does custom exhausts and stuff, so we got a card off them, my mate spoke to them for a bit, finding out about getting an exhaust to fix my bike that he pranged.

We wandered around a bit more, went and got more food.

I had bugger all money left at this point, after paying for admission, a few cans, and food. I thought about going to get more money, somewhere in Maitland, but I'd had a few drinks, so I shouldn't have been riding anywhere.

We sat on the grass and listened to more blues. My mate kept going on about going to get more money, and he wanted cigarettes or something, but I said that our other mate would be there shortly anyway,

We just sat on the grass, and listened to the blues, it was about 45 minutes after that, a little before 6pm, that our other mate turned up.

We hung around for a short while, went down to look at the competition bikes, but most of them had been moved out of the pavilion, must be because they are about to draw it, and they'll have the winning ones up there when they present the trophies or whatever.

We wandered through the stalls, and back up to the grass, we waited there for a bit, and they started presenting the awards.

They didn't have the bikes up there, they were just saying the number of the bike (there were stickers on the bikes, with numbers on them, for you to specify which bike you wanted to vote on) that had won, and who was the owner etc, at which point the person responsible would wander up, get the trophy, and go and sit down again.

It was a bit rough, we didn't know which bikes had won (because didn't remember all the numbers), and the people didn't really do anything, just grabbed the trophy and went and sat down again, barely anyone was even clapping when they got the trophy.

They judged the tattoo stuff after that, and presented the trophies for that, once that was done, they picked the ticket to win the bottle of Beam, my ticket was about 40 numbers off, so I bought my ticket a bit early :-)

We stood there for a while after that, a few bikes were being ridden around, so we stayed out of the way of those, and then we left.

I went across to my bike, jumped on, and rode it to the exit gate.

A few other bikes turned up there at the same time, and went out the entrance, the bikers on the gate got annoyed, I waited, they opened the exit gate, and then I went out.

I wasn't wearing my helmet or anything, so I pulled over, and put all my gear on. I went back, and got a stamp to come back in, in case we decided to come back, because I thought we were just going to have something to eat etc.

I went back to my bike, jumped on, my mate jumped on the back, and then we rode through Maitland, and went to McDonalds in the shopping centre.

As we pulled up, and parked, a paddy wagon parked, the cops got out, and were looking at us. They didn't come over, or say anything, so we went in, ordered, got our food, and went and sat outside.

I'd ordered a Sprite, for some reason, through the lid, it looked yellow, when I took the lid off, I found that it was brown. WTF?

I went back in, and asked what was going on, apparently some idiot had connected the hoses for the soft drink machine the wrong way, and put Coke in the Sprite run.

They got me another drink, from the other drink machine.

I went back outside, ate my meal. I was getting a headache.

We ended up sitting there for about 1/2 hour, chatting, and then we decided that we'd seen enough of the festival, and we decided to go back to Newcastle.

We bummed around a bit more, and then we went and jumped back on the bikes, and we rode to Newcastle.

We parked up, went inside my mate's place, and sat down.

We poured ourselves a couple of drinks, and then just sat around for a while. We tried to put some CDs on, but the CD player needs the laser lens cleaned or something, and it wouldn't recognise whan any CDs were in it.

We ended up putting the radio on, Triple J, and just chilled out.

Apparently my mate hadn't got his new phone, the person had come to sort it out, but he had to be there, and had to sign something else apparently, so they couldn't do it, and the person was going to come back at 9.30am tomorrow.

About an hour later, my mate's wife, who was headed up there, called up (my mate) asking the way, she'd missed the turn, and got lost. She spoke to my other mate, whose place it was, since he lives in the area obviously, and got directions.

A few minutes later, she called me, because she tried to ring my mate (her husband) but his phone hadn't rung or something.

She was now outside, but didn't know what building we were in, or what apartment etc, so I wandered out.

I went up to the car, helped her grab stuff out that she'd brought up, food, and clothes etc, because we were all staying up here tonight, and then we went back inside.

We sta around for another while, and then we got ready, and we went out to get something to eat.

We decided to head down to Darby St, since there's stacks of restaurants along there.

On the way down the road (it was about a 5 minute walk), my mate (whose place we were staying at) gave his wife a piggy back ride down the road.

I was just walking along, and my other mate jumped on my back, and then I chased our other mate down the road for a bit, trying to catch up to him.

After that, I was a bit stuffed. We got down to Darby St, and wandered along looking for something to eat. No one could decide what they wanted.

I wasn't really hungry, because I had a bad headache, and was feeling a bit crook. We wandered up and down the road, I was getting fed up, can someone just decide what they want to eat.

My mate finally decided to get a pizza. He went in and ordered, and I sat on the seat outside on the street, and waited.

He came out a couple of minutes later, and then we sat there waiting for the pizza. We chatted for a while, and then the pizza was ready. My mate went in and grabbed it, and came back out.

He offered me some, and I realised that it was a thin and crispy base. Ugh. I'm not a picky eater these days, there are only about 2 things I won't eat, and that's fat, like hangs off a steak, and thin and crispy pizza base.

I can't stand it, it's like a SAO biscuit, with topping, disgusting.

I was now pretty pissed off. I didn't say anything though.

We walked down the road to find the others, they were sitting in a coffee shop.

My mate offered our other mate some of the pizza, he also refused to eat it.

We now all sort of had the shits with each other, but no one was saying anything about it.

We decided to go to the pub. We started walking down the road. I was now pretty damn pissed off. I had a headache, I was tired, I was hot, and I felt sick. Dragging round the pubs was the last thing I wanted to do.

We went into the pub, found a place to sit. I didn't get anything to drink, so I just sat there.

A few minutes later, my mate had finished his drink, and wanted another one, he gave me some money, and told me to go and get him another drink, and get myself something.

I went over to the bar, waited for ages, and got a couple of drinks.

I went back, and we drank them, he gave me more money, and sent me to get more.

This time it took bloody ages to get served, it was ridiculous. I was waiting at the bar for at least 10 minutes. I eventually got served, went back, and found that everyone had moved.

They'd found a better seat, so had moved, I sat down, we finished our drinks.

I was starting to cheer up a bit, and would have rathered stay there, but someone decided that we should move to some other pub (uh oh, here we go again).

We got up, left, and started wandering to another pub.

We went over the railway, and got into the line to go into a club called Fanny's. While we were waiting in line, someone started talking to the chicks waiting in the line in front of us, and asked them what the music was like in there, and they said that the music was mutch better at a pub in King St.

We realised at this point, that there was a $15 covercharge to get in. I don't think I had $15 on me even, and wasn't too impressed with the idea of paying that much to get in to some club that seems like it's going to be overcrowded, smoky, too loud, and playing shitty music.

My mate said he wasn't going to pay that to go in, so that was the end of that, and we got out of the line, and started wandering off.

I sent an sms to the assistant DBA, saying we had been going to go into Fanny's, because it's been a running gag at work, about going to Fanny's.

We walked over near the waterfront, there's a pub there, but it was totally packed out too. I didn't even want to think about squashing in there, and then having to wait ages for a drink.

We kept going. We were going to walk over another railway footbridge, but our mate who lives there said that the rails ended a little bit further up the road, and then we could just walk around.

We kept going, and we walked around the end of the rails, an back towards town on the other side. When we got near the railway station, there was barbecue setup.

We got closer, and found that there was some good organisation going on, they had a free sausage sizzle going on, it said that "donations were not required, or expected", but we all put a couple of bucks in anyway, we got sausage sandwiches.

They had chairs setup, so we sat down and ate, and had a bit of a chat.

They also had a breathaliser there, and you didn't have to pay to use it, like you usually do.

It was also the nightride bus service stop, and there were people there to tell you which bus to get on depending on where you wanted to go.

Obviously they're targetting drink driving, and I think the way they've done it is going to work.

Once we'd finished our food, we kept wandering.

We started looking for the next pub to go into.

My mate and his wife (whose place we were staying at) had an argument, and my mate's wife took off ahead of us.

We kept walking along, we got to another pub eventually, with a huge line to get in. Ugh, I cannot be bothered, and I need to go to the loo. There were some public toilets, so I went there.

My mate got in the line to go in, his wife sat down on a bench. I sat down next to her, only because I didn't want to wait in the line, and didn't want to go in the pub.

My other mate, and his wife, had been in the line with my other mate, they got out of the line, and came over to find out what was going on.

Our other mate, by this time, had managed to get into the pub. We sat and waited for a while, hoping he would figure out that we weren't in there, and come out, because he was the only one with keys to his place, and our stuff was in there.

We were all so pissed off now, that we talked about going back and getting our stuff, and leaving, and going and finding a motel or something, because we didn't want to deal with their squabbling.

While we were sitting there, some idiots were hanging around behind the seat we were sitting on, and one of them fell over, or got pushed over or something, at any rate, he fell down behind the seat, and hit it on his way down, so we were all on edge, not knowing what was going on behind us.

My mate jumped up, he does security for hosptials, so he deals with this crap all the time. He ended up helping pick up the guy from behind the seat, and sending them all on their way.

He sat down again, and we continued waiting. Our mate's wife got up, and went over, and managed to get in the club, bypassing the line. She came back out a minute later. My mate said that he was thinking about going, and she said that she had the keys.

We got up, and started walking back, our mate had given her the keys, and stayed in there.

We got about 1/4 of the way back, and realised our mate was coming up behind us. We slowed so he could catch up, and then it was really tense, he was wanting to talk about stuff, but none of use were having a bar of it, and wouldn't say anything.

We got about 1/2 the way back, and we realised that our mate and his wife (who had been arguing) had dropped right back, and now it was just my other mate, and his wife.

We got back to the place we were staying, and we ended up sitting out on the footpath out the front, waiting, because we didn't have the keys, and couldn't get in.

I think we sat there for about 1/2 hour, and then our mate turned up, without his wife, and we spoke to him for a minute, and then we all went inside.

Someone put the tv on, and we sta and watched Rage for a couple of hours.

I felt a bit tired, so I went into the spare room (my mate and his wife were staying on the sofa bed in the loungeroom, and I'd been lying on the floor), I watched a bit more Rage on the tv in there, and then I turned it off and went to sleep, about 4am I think it was.