As hundreds make the pilgrimage to celebrate the 50th anniversary of an event hailed as the birthplace of the counter-culture movement in Australia, a key question remains: has the dream of the first Nimbin Aquarius festival been realised half a century on?
In the early 1970s, a group of Sydney university students were keen to create an Australian version of Woodstock: a counter-culture festival that celebrated art, sustainability, harmony and freedom.
Their search for a suitable site landed them in Nimbin, a once conservative town folded in rolling green hills and rainforest in northern New South Wales, beaten almost to bankruptcy by the dairy depression of the late 1960s.
It was a catalyst for many of the townsfolk to put their reservations aside and co-host the festival.
As 'unstructured' as possible
Despite the decades that have passed, Graeme Dunstan's passion for the festival he co-organised with Johnny Allen is as alive as ever.
"So much flowed from our action, from our values, from our willingness to be visible and engage and build community and commit our lives to a different vision," he said.
For Mr Dunstan, a key motivator in selecting Nimbin as a site was getting the biennial student festival away from the capital cities and campuses where protests had typically taken place.
"[That way] we'd have to look at what peace meant and we'd have to see what we were for, rather than what we were against," he said.
Black-and-white footage of a much younger Mr Dunstan, filmed on the first day of the festival in May 1973, exists in the ABC archives.
In it, he tells a reporter that entrepreneurs have killed rock festivals so the Aquarius festival would be "as unstructured as possible so people can come along and make the sort of festival they'd want".
When asked what the success of the festival would prove, he said it would be difficult to judge because the festival would be "so many things to so many different people".
"If it works in such a way that we don't pollute the creek, we don't have major outbreaks of diseases, we don't have fights and those sorts of things [it will be a success]," he said.
"If you can get together in large numbers of 5,000 and exist with gentleness and love and it works … that's a sign that we may well survive the century when we're surrounded in gloom."
Planting the seeds of cannabis law changes
It's no secret that cannabis was a key ingredient in the 1973 Aquarius festival and has remained so in Nimbin, which has become ground zero for the national cannabis law reform movement.
At the helm of that movement is the president of the Legalise Cannabis Party Michael Balderstone.
"The Legalise Cannabis Party really has been grounded in Nimbin for a couple of decades … [and now] there are five MPs across Australia," he said.
"I reckon a lot of those seeds were planted back then."
For Mr Balderstone, the 50th anniversary is a time to reflect on the success of the festival's ideals, such as social equality and environmental sustainability.
"We've got lots of homeless, it's a nightmare for people who want to own their house, rents are going through the roof … [and] we are still just poisoning the earth and the water," he said.
"All those hippie values stand up well … [but] they got the timing wrong.
"We all thought it would happen quickly, everyone waking up. But it's been a slow process."
Festival as 'chaotic' as ever
Jenny Cornish was an 18-year-old university student when she made the pilgrimage from Adelaide to Nimbin to take part in the 1973 Aquarius festival.
Half a century on, she's returned as a key organiser and says the process remains remarkably similar.
"It was chaotic way back then as it is chaotic now," Ms Cornish said.
"But that's also Aquarian because it is about freedom and finding the way and making decisions collectively."
Ms Cornish said one of the main goals of the 50th anniversary was to encourage conversations and "deep listening" so people could connect and reflect on big issues.
"It's challenging every thought and every paradigm to see what works and what doesn't," she said.
Lasting legacies of Aquarius
Southern Cross University cultural studies lecturer Rob Garbutt has researched Australian culture, focusing on "the Rainbow Region" of northern New South Wales.
Dr Garbutt said it was hard to quantify the extent to which the first Nimbin Aquarius festival might have influenced Australian culture but it certainly had a big impact on the region.
He said it could be argued that many of the region's national parks might not exist had the festival not brought people to the area who then fought to preserve them through protests and blockades such as Terania Creek.
"There's a number of things … [such as] the rainforests of Gondwana that we take for granted now but that may not have been here in the same form had that festival not gone ahead," he said.
Dr Garbutt said another legacy of the Aquarius festival was collaboration with First Nations people.
"The other thing that the Aquarius festival did was to recognise First Nations people and seek out First Nations involvement in the festival itself," he said.
"I think that's also something that was quite novel [at the time] in as far as valuing First Nations cultures."
Mr Garbutt said the significance of the festival was also evident in the amount of time it had endured.
"I find it interesting that 50 years on, the Nimbin Aquarius festival made such an impact on so many people's lives that there is a 50th anniversary celebration of it."
