OMG the dust! Sitting inside the motorhome having breakfast and there was so much dust. The entire camp was under a cloud of dust as campers packed up and joined the queue for the rollout. The rollout gates didn’t open until 7am and there were people lined up in the queue ready for the gates to open.

All round our little camp was a hive of activity however only Paul & Ruth from our group had to leave today. They need to get home as Ruth had received the sad news that her dad had passed away. I hoped their trip home to Sydney was a safe one. So we were down to 5 caravans and a motorhome now.

I’m glad we decided to stay an extra night at Bashville and not have to join the long queue of departing vehicles. We were almost out of water though so we would have to leave tomorrow so we could fill up in Birdsville.

After farewelling Paul and Ruth I went for a walk to the top of Big Red to take photos of the camp being packed up. It’s a tough walk straight up the deep red sand to the top. There was a line of people at the top all on their mobile phones. It’s the only place you can get service and it’s spotty at best. I was able to send texts to our family though to let them know we are OK. My mum texted back that she’d seen The Big Red Bash on the ABC News that morning. She said it looked fantastic.

It was lovely and cool at the top of the dune but the flies! OMG now there are a lot less people so there’s more flies per person.

It was fascinating watching the huge stage and all the other Bash buildings being dismantled. One huge road train with three trailers was parked in front of the stage and it looks like most of the stage construction gets packed into that. I guess it will be all going to Mundi Mundi Bash at Broken Hill next month.

Back at camp and it was interesting watching all the campers leaving. So many rigs of all shapes and sizes. The dust was horrendous. At one point the dust cloud blotted out the sand dunes on either side of Bashville. I didn’t feel like I would ever be clean again!

Robert & Catie decided about lunchtime to pack up and get going. They were meeting friends at Gregory before going out to Adels Grove and they had to be at Adels by the 12th. This only gave them 3 nights to get to Gregory. We would catch up with them again at Adels as we were booked in there on the 15th.

So now we were 5. All five of our group remaining were traveling to Mt Isa so we would probably camp together along the way somewhere in the desert the next night. We were all booked into the same caravan park in Mt Isa and I was actually looking forward to being in a CP so I could clean the dirty motorhome and wash everything.

All five of us packed up as much as we could in the late afternoon ready for an earlyish getaway the next morning.

At 5.30pm a group of us walked to the top of Big Red for one last sunset in the Simpson. It truly is a magical sight as the sun goes down and the red sand glows for while and then all of a sudden it gets dark.