Our ‘Makin’ Memories’ group of 6 caravans and one motorhome set off from Birdsville on the morning of Sunday 4 July 2021. I think everyone was feeling some excitement as, this was the day, the culmination of 2 years of planning. There was sadness in 2020 when the event was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a great sense of relief to hear that the same artists would return for 2021 and our tickets would carry over.

Unfortunately, one of our gas bottles ran out during the night (why do they always run out in the middle of the night?) so we left the group early to go up to the Roadhouse and get in the queue for a gas refill. There were only five in front of us so we hoped we wouldn’t hold the group up for too long.

As we waited I saw our group head out of town and got a message from Mandie that they would wait for us at the end of the tar. We didn’t have long to wait before it was our turn for the gas refill and then we were off on our way to The Big Red Bash.

We’d arranged to use UHF channel 29 to communicate with each other. As we got closer to our group my call on the UHF was answered and they were all pulled over waiting for us. It was a great sight as we came over a sand hill and there they were. We let them in in front of us and we joined the long queue ahead of us.

The queue moved fairly quickly. It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Marshall where our Early Entry stickers were checked and, as Brian was in the lead, he let them know we were a group of 7 (originally 8 but now down to 7) and we were asked to pull off to the side while they sorted a big site for our large group.

We were directed by marshals to turn into a certain roadway and down to the middle of the bash site. We were given 8 sites to set up on. Turns out our site was only the second road back from The Plaza and right next to the middle walkway directly in line with the main stage. There was even a toilet block on the other side of the walkway. The ice and firewood truck was there too. What a fantastic spot!

We set up our RV’s and as we had the spare spot we were able to set up our fire pit in the middle of that. Everyone was pretty happy with our site. We couldn’t have really asked for a better one.

We enjoyed another great night around the campfire.