featured,

At first glance, it's easy to think that you've stepped back to 19th century Belgium. Soldiers dressed in period uniforms walk in and out of canvas tents, as women sit embroidering. Horses are tied up in a makeshift stable, and two era-specific cannons sit idol, just waiting to be fired. Yes, when you only take in the surface details, it's easy to think you're about to witness the Battle of Waterloo. Until you look closer. The soldier who walked out of the canvas tent? He was eating a ham and salad tortilla held together in cling wrap. The woman embroidering? She's just taken out her iPhone to take a photo. And not to mention there's a crowd of 21st-century onlookers, wandering through this make-shift village, dressed in their puffer jackets taking in this depiction of 'history'. You haven't stepped back in time. You've stepped into the middle of a historical re-enactment. Gold Trails Reenactments have come together at Shaw Vineyard Estate to recreate the historic battle. For many, they say it's a chance to embrace history. Some say they are in it for the comradery; to "meet up with like-minded fools". While for others, it's "just a bit of fantasy". "I guess I never grew out of playing with toy soldiers really," Brad Manera says. Dressed as a corporal in the 73rd regiment of foot, he has spent the day giving demonstrations and answering questions from eager onlookers. He answers everything from how his musket works to why it is this European battle is being recreated. "I have been known to be intrigued by other periods in history," Manera says. "I'm a little reluctant to do re-enactments of things that are within living memory. Australia sent a very literate army to the First World War and Second World War, so you sort of wonder what can we learn. "Whereas with the Napoleonic wars there's not a great deal of perspective of the common soldier has survived. And so by camping out and firing muskets, we learn a little more about the day-to-day lived experience." And it's an experience which is months in the making. Gold Trails Reenactments president Wes Leseberg says things like gunpowder and tents need to be catered for, and the battle itself needs to be choreographed, condensing the battle to 30 minutes. And of course, the right people need to get a "tap on the shoulder" to indicate that at some point they're going to 'die'. Luckily for the enthusiastic performers, with only 80 people performing a battle which involved 191,000, their death is only temporary, and they get to rejoin the fight. Leseberg calls himself a newcomer to re-enacting, only taking it up in 2012. He was a New South Wales police officer when, for the force's 150th anniversary, he took part in a re-enactment of a gunfight between police and the Hall gang. "We got into World War I after that with the Australian light horse stuff," Leseberg says. "It wasn't much longer after that we were into Napoleonic events. Now we're doing American civil war and some Thirty Years' War stuff from Europe as well." For Leseberg, these demonstrations are about preserving history. "Some of these things are starting to get forgotten because the drawings and the paintings are essentially propaganda to commemorate and to glorify what a regiment did in the heat of battle," he says. "It's easy to forget the horrors of war from this period. For instance, after Waterloo, you had the Waterloo teeth, essentially. Most of the soldiers who died on this battlefield had their teeth removed once they were dead and they were used for dentures right across Europe and England. That was a very common thing but that's something that's starting to be forgotten about." Others are not so convinced. University of NSW history professor Canberra Peter Stanley was "tremendously disappointed and disillusioned" by his own experience with re-enactments. Stanley previously worked as the Australian War Memorial's principal historian where he "fell into" impersonating Charles Bean at open days. It was from there that a friend convinced him to go to a re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg in America. "Many of them genuinely believe that you can gain a greater understanding of history by dressing up and play-acting," he says. "I actually discovered that - I thought - re-enacting didn't give you a closer understanding because you could never sufficiently immerse yourself. So, for example, when I was standing watching the American Union infantry firing at the Confederates, it wasn't like real life because I knew that I was completely safe. "It seemed to me that the people who were doing it didn't actually understand the history they were re-enacting." Stanley says it was the little things that broke the illusion. For example, the reenactment - like the actual battle of Gettysburg - played out during a hot, humid summer. It was so hot and humid in fact, that one of the planned re-enactments was called off because the iced water hadn't arrived yet. "I thought 'What sort of commitment does that show? What insight does that give you?' The real soldiers at Gettysburg had to fight in that sort of weather and they didn't have any iced water," Stanley says. "And that was the other thing - it was a spectacle. In Australia, re-enactors basically do it for themselves. But in the United States ... it's a spectacle in that thousands of people go along to watch and it's presented as almost entertainment and to me that completely drained it of authenticity." If anything, Stanley believes the lack of spectacle that comes with Australian re-enactments works in their favour, as it has "preserved that authenticity and integrity that American re-enactors have lost". Although it is an authenticity which is not just confined to Australian war re-enactments. Stanley says while elements of medieval re-enactments "shades off into fantasy some times", he does respect the re-enactors who create their costumes and weapons from scratch. "They talk about re-enacting so they can understand by doing it, and for medieval things when you have to make your own clothes and fashion your own weapons there's definitely the sense in which they are learning about the medieval period," he says. Those who have driven by the Ainslie Scout Hall on a Sunday would have seen the Barony of Politarchopolis. As part of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) - an international organisation devoted to bringing the middle ages to life - the barony is one of 12 within the kingdom of Lochac. The kingdom has baronies across Australia and New Zealand and is one of 20 worldwide. Unlike the Gold Trails Reenactments, which focuses on one time period at a time, the Barony of Politarchopolis can cover everything from the vikings to Elizabethan times, at once. They also have a king and queen 'ruling' the barony and others within a kingdom. Tournaments are held for knights to fight for the chance to be king and queen for the next six months. Again, unlike the Battle of Waterloo reenactment, these battles are not choreographed and rely on the winner being the better fighter on the day. Alice Balnaves-Knyvett, a Canberra member of the Barony of Politarchopolis, first became interested in re-enacting when at 16; she and her family were invited to a medieval feast and a tournament. It was at the tournament that a knight chose her from out of the crowd as his "inspiration" to fight on the day. "I gave him a favour and he won the tournament and then a local bard wrote a song about it," she recalls. "For me, it was like a dream and I was hooked for life." She has since taken up medieval fighting herself, and recently completed a weekend away at knight school, where she was mentored by experienced knights and took part in classes on footwork and power generation. "[We] aren't killing each other, but we are going full speed and full power and what we do is train to then fight in a sport," she says. "The idea is to try and get as good as you can and to be very proficient at it - it takes a long time. You can have fun in six months but to be really good at it, it takes 10 years and a lot of practice." As well as meeting with the wider barony every Sunday, Balnaves-Knyvett and her husband join in a weekly fight training session. Her husband also takes his combat one step further and hand-makes his armour. Meanwhile, Balnaves-Knyvett sews medieval dresses for herself and her two daughters. But just like there is a spectrum of eras which barony members focus on, there is also a spectrum of how historically accurate they are. "There are some people who make the fabric for the clothes that they wear and then they make the clothes out of the fabric that they have just woven. Some go as far as spinning the yarn to make the fabric," Balnaves-Knyvett says. "And then we have some people who are forging so the will build a forge and forge metal and they will create something that was what you would have been able to produce at that time. "But then we have some other people who are in a tea tunic - which is basically a big T-shirt - and a pair of pants and their focus is on doing other things." It all comes back to what is the driving factor for the re-enactor. "I think that most of the people are driven by a love of history," Balnaves-Knyvett says. "It's about being to really drive into the period that they're really interested in, and find people interested in that as well. It might even be about the idea of a chivalrous knight, and the ideals of chivalry that you can then take to your everyday life."

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc75tcagoybcl1attose.jpg/r0_254_5000_3079_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg