Seun Kuti's show was delayed by sound gremlins. Photo / Supplied

Seun Kuti's show was delayed by sound gremlins. Photo / Supplied

Friday

5pm: Somehow, my 87 Corolla splutters into New Plymouth after an eight-hour drive without a breakdown. I pitch camp in a rapidly growing tent city at the city's racecourse - I'm assigned a spot beside the toilets, so at least I'll be able to find my way back - and wander downhill to Brooklands Park, venue for Womad 2009. A three-day feast of world music, food and arts awaits.

5.45pm: Taranaki iwi open the festival, followed by the inevitable speeches. An MP drones on for what feels like several days.

6pm: "Kia ora! How you doin'?" That's Senegal's Seckou Keita - billed as the "Hendrix of the kora", with a phallic-looking African harp made from a gourd, a piece of mahogany and 21 bits of fishing line. Then, singer Binta Suso, from Gambia, launches into the band's first number and my hair stands on end. What a voice!

7pm: I hoof it up a monstrous hill to the other end of Brooklands Park - sprinting from one end of the site to the other between bands soon becomes a familiar ritual - to catch the Bedouin Jerry Can Band, a bunch of itinerant musicians and coffee grinders from Egypt's Sinai desert.

In case you're wondering about the name, their instruments include ammunition cases and jerry cans left behind by the Israeli army after the Six Day War.

The lead singer, clad in traditional Arab robes, doesn't know a lot of English - but he knows enough to shout, "Hello! How arrrre you?" after every song. He also knows enough to inform us that he is being distracted by "a girl with very attractive eyes" dancing in the front row. "Don't you mean a goat?" one wag shouts.

7.23pm: The band is upstaged by a Whangarei District councillor as she attempts to fold up a spring-loaded mat. Her 10-minute battle has the audience transfixed. When she finally scurries away, the mat still fighting to escape her grip, dozens of onlookers cheer and clap.

8pm: I rush back to the main stage to catch Sa Dingding as she weaves together traditional Chinese folk and Western electronica. She tells the audience New Zealand reminds her of her home in Inner Mongolia because there's so much grass. I assume she's referring to the stuff growing on the Taranaki hills, not the pungent clouds wafting across the park. To my ears, her singing sound like cats mating. The ducks flee, honking, into the sky.

8.34pm: I head to the global food village for a feed, and find everyone has the same idea. The queue for Hungarian langos - discs of deep-fried dough - stretches halfway across the village. I go for a Greek souvlaki instead.

9pm: Anglo-Egyptian diva Natacha Atlas is one of the few performers I've heard of, thanks to her cross-over albums with Transglobal Underground, and I'm looking forward to her show. Alas, Atlas is a disappointment, storming off stage mid-song when the sound isn't up to scratch and barely lifting her bum off her seat.