Like I told you in an earlier story I had an invitation for the 2-years Gathering of Australian Basketmakers. We arrived on Wednesday April 26 in Natural Bridge, Queensland. This village lays in the neighbourhood of Brisbane and the Gold Coast. It is a beautful area with a lot of rainforest with huge treeferns and mountain ash. In the weeks before we arrived a very heavy storm raged over the eastern part of Australia with a huge amount of rain and wind. A lot of houses, villages and other things like the forest where distroyed. We saw everywhere the damage around us. Luckely the roads where made free.
Arriving almost at the booked campingplace the road was narrowed to a very small strip o
f tarmac. On one side the mountain and the other side a huge gab going downhill. Hopefully no one was driving there when the mountain did slide away. We arrived at an almost empty campingplace, the Log Cabin, and we got us a nice side near the showers. Sometime later we left the camping to go to Bornhoffen. We received a warm welcome from the board
and where invited to look around and meet a lot of basketmakers, most women.
Late in the evening we went back to the camping for a good sleep.
The next morning my husband Geert brought me back to Bornhoffen. Because he is no basketmaker
he left Bornhoffen soon for a day out in the Forest. I had a great day, so many new materials. In this part of Australia they are blessed with so much beautiful plantmaterial. I learnt how to proces a banana trunk to make lovely string from it and from very hard materials how to soak them in water so that they would feel like leather. I met wonderful people how teached me so many things I can’t remember them all. My photos are good reminders.
