An Intimate Courtney Barnett Gig & A Run In With A Bat: It's Barunga Festival Day Two

People are slowly waking by 9am and the smell of bacon slowly wafts over the square.

It's a lot cooler this morning (though it's expected to rise to the 30s) and as I sit with my chai latte, I can hear someone over the loudspeaker making the last call for the 9am walking tour. Market stalls are starting to set up from vendors like the Fred Hollows Foundation, Northern Australian Quarantine Strategy and CatholicCare NT and there's men in their army greens and loads of kids from the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education wandering around too. 

A bit past 9am, Justine Clarke takes the stage with her children's show. Wearing the cutest watermelon printed dress (gimme!), Clarke's audience is about fifty toddlers in brightly coloured hats, all parked in the sand in front of the main stage. Dancing Face is adorably interactive, essentially a chance for the children to make the silliest faces possible, while Dancing Pants is a '50s style groove complete with Clarke's cheesy little bandstand dancing moves. Towards the end of the set Clarke invites up about 15 indigenous children from the Barunga School. You can tell they're a little shy but their voices are big and excited, singing songs about "our Creole country", crocs and buffaloes and a devil. 

Okay, can we just talk about the salted plums I've been eating that have turned my fingers, lips and teeth a Trump-shade of orange? Apparently it's full of phenylalanine too... I also think I got sprayed by some batpiss thanks to the breeze as I walked under one of the trees they were lurking in, so there's that. 

I grab some press time with Courtney Barnett at the APRA Music Tent at 11am (what a sweetheart!) and afterwards, have a gander around the AFL and basketball games. Coming in halfway, I have no idea what's happening in either competition but the basketballers are crazy good and the excitement palpable from those watching. We're in the heat of the day now so I don't know how these kids are functioning enough to run amok with a ball but I need a smoothie so I'm off again. On the way I stop at the Art Shed to check out the crafts - there are hand-crafted boomerangs, painted shorts, necklaces, paintings and tie-dyed tshirts created either by artists in the area or the children from the Wugularr School. It's another place people are seeking a bit of shade from the midday sun.

I grab an old school homemade rissole sandwich to eat while watching some more AFL - so delicious. The tackles some of these guys are doing are incredible: one guy just tumble-turned out of a tackle into a stand and I can't help but wonder why I wasn't passed on any helpful hand-eye coordination skills at all when it comes to sports.  

As the weather has cooled down, people have started lounging under the trees in front of the main stage to watch the Yidaki playing competition. It's such a great, relaxed atmosphere - though there's not a lot going on at any one time at Barunga Festival, it means there's no real pressure for anyone. No running to stages, no clashes with acts, no splitting up with your mates or family. There's plenty of time to wander around and settle into watching something for a while without feeling guilty that you're missing something else. 

ALSO OMG I JUST FOUND A FUCKING BABY BAT ON A LOW-HANGING TREE HE WAS SO CUTE I HAVE NAMED HIM BOBBY.

I'm good now. Aside from the crocodiles and snakes and apocalyptic bat infestations, it's cool that a festival held in a community like this means you can experience wildlife like this right here and now. The little dude was just as wide-eyed as I was when I arrived here. 

The opening ceremony kicks off at 4.30pm, in front of a packed out main stage for the first time all festival. Children and young, hip festival goers are sopping wet from swimming in the river, and as they sit to dry themselves in the afternoon sun Gurrumul, Manuel Dhurrkay and four others are all taking part in a didgeridoo contest with us as their judge. The sounds are so varied it's remarkable they're all coming from the same instrument. Gurrumul, Freddy and Jamie are awarded a triple tie for the prize money (the clapometer is very difficult to quantify after all). Traditional dances from young men and women from Shalom Christian College and the White Cockatoo troupe entertain us along with music from the Torres Strait Islands and it's a lovely afternoon in the sun. 

Myf introduces Bush Band proceedings at the Skinnyfish stage at 7pm and a crowd of indigenous locals form on the barrier for angsty emcee Jay Marshall. He's got strong messages about cross-culturalism and the Stolen Generation and it definitely strikes a chord with the crowd, especially when he raps over Dr Dre's The Next Episode. We're treated to tunes from Shaka Band, Manual D, Woogala Drifters and more, before I head over to the APRA Music Tent's acoustic stage by the river. The stage is overflowing with people - all the chairs are filled and people are sitting all the way up the hill and on the sides of the riverbank - and with a strong female-centric line-up tonight, it's no surprise. Eleanor Dixon and Sand Hill Women deliver atmospheric electro pop tunes in their native language, while young Katherine artist Serina Pech stuns the tent with her haunting voice - wow, what a voice - and quirky ballads. She's even got a cheeky sense of humour to go with her amazing tunes - "this one is about falling in love with strangers on public transport and stuff", "I wrote this after getting fired from a job after 30 minutes". With an uncanny knack for writing a song, she's definitely one to watch. 

The APRA tent has somehow filled out even more for Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher. Cloher comes on stage first to play Rain but she hilariously forgets the lyrics and "cans it", instead bringing out Barnett and their drummer for Numbers. The trio play a set of covers (like a song by Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch) and originals of each of their songs, Cloher chattering away between songs during her set and Barnett slightly facing her the entire time. It's an insanely intimate way to see both musos, with Barnett (fresh from playing SNL's season finale and Coachella a few months ago) taking a back seat from her worldwide stardom. During Barnett's set, she admits, "I don't know why I'm so nervous... So I'll pretend I'm not," and plays Scotty Says, Avant Gardener, Dead Fox and more, her dry wit peeking through her nerves between songs.