OK Sunrise survivors report!...
We drove down to Sunrise directly from Knockengorroch in Scotland which was predominantly dry & dusty and we had no idea that there had been flooding in the south over the bank holiday weekend until we read the papers on the Monday. On the Tuesday night we stayed on a campsite near Hereford and drove down to Glastonbury on the Wednesday in almost constant rain. So much so that we treated ourselves to a night in a B&B rather than a soggy night in the van.
On Thursday we woke to glorious sunshine & drove to the site at about 11am only to be told by the security at the end of the lane that no punters were being allowed on the site until 1pm in order for more trackways to be laid. So we came back at 1 to find a slow moving queue of traffic on the duel carriageway section of the A303 that the lane leading to the site is accessed from. We got onto the single track lane but then traffic stopped for some time while an ambulance negotiated its way past as all the traffic pulled over into the grass verge.
We were already hearing reports from friends stuck on the A303 that there were tailbacks on both sides of the duel carriage way and also on the A37 which it crosses at the nearby Podimore roundabout. Traffic was being turned away but of course these vehicles simply looped round to rejoin the queue. I've since heard rumours of at least 5 accidents on the road caused by the congestion.
Meanwhile we finally got onto the site and parked the van albeit in a different field to the one that we should have been in which had already been closed because the access to it was too muddy. In fact we needed a push from stewards to get to the top of the hill. We got our awning up and proceeded to crack into the cider and bask in the warm sunshine. I then heard from Flip who had been turned away twice that the event's license had been revoked.
I went off to find out what the situation was & asked several stewards who were none the wiser but I noticed that no punters had been allowed into the actual festival site itself which seemed strange as you have to go through the site to access the camping fields. All those with tents seemed to have got fed up with waiting & were setting up impromptu camps in the campervan fields and around the Woodhenge area. There were very few toilets in this area and only one burger van for food.
I then found a Supervisor who said that the license hadn't been revoked but that there was a meeting taking place to assess whether the festival should be postponed. This seemed rather strange as our hilltop position was drying out nicely but the majority of the site is much lower lying and stewards were telling stories of having to wade through knee deep water the previous evening.
Shortly afterwards the sky started looking very ominous & when the thunderstorm came it was approaching the intensity of Glastonbury 2005. This continued for nearly 2 hours and even where we were at the top of the hill there was a steady flood of water flowing through our awning and down the hill.
At that stage it became pretty obvious that the festival wouldn't be happening although there was some hope later when sound systems were heard playing on the site but when punters tried to get across the bridge at the entrance they were turned back. The sound systems were shut down pretty quickly to prevent the situation turning ugly but started up again at about 1am so we wandered down to have another look and were allowed across the bridge by the now rather fed up looking security.
Admittedly it was dark and we didn't get to see much of the site but what we did see was under a minimum of 6 inches of water. My walking boots filled up with water straight away & even people in wellies were struggling. We did find one crew bar which had a sound system playing & also in the Cats Cradle stage but dancing in that much water soon lost its appeal & we stumbled our way back up the hill.
On Friday morning we woke to find that people were already being towed offsite by tractors. Very few vehicles were able to escape under their own steam and virtually all those that did were 4-wheel-drive. Initially there were only 3 tractors available but gradually more turned up. We ended up queuing for nearly 3 hours for our tow and well over half of the vehicles were still onsite when we finally escaped at about 2:30.
Once we had got away we basically had a choice. We could have headed for home & a hot bath but this was our holiday & we are made of sterner stuff, Strange-Fish & I, so we headed straight up the M5 to Cheltenham for the Wychwood festival. There we bumped into several other survivors including Tim & Athene of 3 Daft Monkeys who told us that they had got off the A303 & onto the lane but the rest of their crew had been turned away. They pointed out to the stewards that if the festival had been canceled they would have to get out again in order to do their Wychwood gig. They were informed that the festival had indeed already been canceled and they were allowed to turn around. But they were told that they shouldn’t tell anybody else about the cancellation on their way back out or there would be chaos. So it would seem the only reason that so many people were allowed onto the site in the first place was to placate the police in their concerns over the number of vehicles blocking the road. I’d be amazed if they get a license next year unless they move to a completely different site.
Wychwood was OK by the way. & it pretty much stayed dry throughout.
