Let the drums entice you at San Francisco's Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park

BRING your dancing shoes and let the sound of beating drums lure you into another world.

There's always a crowd at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park. Picture: Angela Saurine

AS I'M meandering through San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on a warm Sunday afternoon, I hear the sound of beating drums in the distance.

Glancing across the horizon to see where the noise is coming from, I spot a grassy hill dotted with people sunning themselves. Enticed by the music and with no particular place to be, I decide to grab a bottle of water from a nearby cart and wander in that direction.

An eclectic mix
As I approach the smell of incense and marijuana becomes stronger and I see the audience is made up of an interesting mix of people. Young, professional couples lie on picnic rugs next to homeless men with their possessions in shopping trolleys beside them. A shirtless man with long dreadlocks about halfway up the mound is twirling red balls at the end of two silver chains.

At the bottom of the hill a random rabble of musicians are gathered on a makeshift peace sign that forms a drum circle; banging bongos, dinging xylophones and shaking maracas. A man hits a metal triangle, the kind I don't think I have seen since I was at primary school, while another plays the harmonica.

A young woman in a long skirt with long, blonde hair dances in the middle of the circle and waves her arms in the air. She looks like she could have stepped out of a time machine from Woodstock. When she floats away she is quickly replaced by a middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap and a denim jacket with a picture of a large marijuana leaf and the words "Legalize it" emblazoned across the back.

But it is the men playing the drums who are the most interesting. One is an overweight young man in a tie-dyed T-shirt wearing an oversized purple cowboy hat and large sunglasses, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He sits beside a bearded Asian man with shoulder-length black hair and a moustache, and a shirtless older man with long, grey, stringy hair parted down the middle and loose fitting white pants.

An older black man in a long, black leather coat with a silver cross hanging around his chest and a black hat with a red feather bends down to play his recorder to a shy Asian boy who is watching with his father. Another child sits on his father's shoulders, tapping his head to the beat of the drums. Soon a man on a unicycle appears along the path, while another man juggles tennis balls a few metres away and another group throws a Frisbee back and forth.

An accidental discovery
The best travel experiences are often the ones you come across by chance, and that is certainly the case with Hippie Hill; one of the few remnants of San Francisco's flower child past.

I had been nonchalantly heading towards the touristy California Academy of Sciences at the other end of the park when I had been drawn to the grassy knoll. Once I am there I find it hard to leave.

A young black man with a gold tooth named Alvin who is also entranced by the scene strikes up a conversation. He tells me has been standing there for three hours. He says Hippie Hill has been a popular gathering point since the 1960s and he has been coming here on a regular basis since he was a child.

Everyone is welcome to bring along an instrument or get up and dance and express themselves, with no one deemed too weird or spaced out to take part. Alvin tells me they are there every weekend and while there is a small core group, the faces change all the time. They often play well into the night, and certainly show no signs of winding down when it starts to get cold and dark and I drag myself away to get the bus back to my hotel.

Hippie history
San Francisco was the centre of hippie culture in the 1960s, when a youth movement inspired by the Beats of the 1950s began embracing psychedelic rock music, the sexual revolution, communal living and the use of drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness.

The Haight-Ashbury district on the park's border still clings to some of that history. Medical marijuana use is decriminalised in California, and the area boasts San Francisco's original smoke shop, as well as boutiques selling vintage clothing, organic food stores and cafes.

The Human Be-In took place in Golden Gate Park in 1967 and led to the Summer of Love social phenomenon, which drew up to 100,000 college and high school students to the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood during Spring Break. Two years later the infamous Woodstock Festival was held on a dairy farm in the state of New York, on the other side of the country.

Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir has been quoted describing Haight-Ashbury as a ghetto of bohemians who wanted to do anything. "And we did," he said. But while he admits LSD was used, he insists Haight-Ashbury was not about drugs.

"It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one's existence," he said.

I didn't make it to California Academy of Sciences, but I wouldn't say I felt like I missed out.

 Getting there
Hippie Hill is at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. United Airlines flies a direct daily service from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco.
More: www.unitedairlines.com.au or phone 131 777

 Staying there
A range of accommodation options are available on San Francisco's tourism website.
More: www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com

Musicians gather at Hippie Hill every weekend in fine weather.

 Travel Tips: San Francisco Destination Guide