The countryside from Boulia is pretty much the same at the other side of Boulia. Lots of stones, flat plains, small creeks that you know are there by the line of trees, narrow tar road with occasional cattle grids.

Near Dajarra a long line of jump ups appeared on the horizon to the west and ahead of us. These jump ups rise up out of the flat plains below.

The narrow road is a much rougher road than the one to Bedourie and the cattle’s grids are very rough but we are still able to travel at about 9o0km/h on most stretches. Off course if a vehicle is coming the other way we slow right down and get onto to shoulder to let them past.

As we approached Dajarra we entered the low hills. The road went up and down over the low hills. This stretch had lots of steep gullies formed by flood waters. We came across two three trailer road trains going through this section. They were the first ones we’d seen since Longreach. They were both cattle trucks. We pulled right off onto the shoulder for those to go past and let them stay on the tar.

There were also a lot of Brahman cattle around that area. We travelled through the low hills for quite a way before entering the tiny community of Dajarra. Dajarra has a Roadhouse and a couple of streets of houses and not a lot else. There were a few Aboriginal people in the streets so we assumed it’s an Aboriginal community. Like everywhere on this journey there were RV’s parked everywhere and lined up to get fuel.

We didnt stop in Dajarra and continued on through the hills. The familiar domes of spinifex cover the rocky hillsides and we saw hundreds of red termite mounds. We both commented that this was pretty country compared to the flat stoney plains.

Everyone was up bright and early and ready to roll out at 7.00am. Our first stop was The Tip just on the outskirts of Birdsville. All your rubbish from the BRB has to be taken out with you so there was a line of RV’s doing exactly what we were doing, droppping off our rubbish and bottles. Cans and PET bottles that can be recycled and can be left in the big bins provided at Bashville.

Next stop was the Dump Point and as there was a queue at the first one we carried on through town to the one near the Racecourse. Only 1 in front of us! Yay.

Then it was back to the Birdsville Common to fill up our water tanks. I’m really happy that our tanks lasted for the whole time at Bashville AND we had showers every day. They were short showers but still helped to get the dust off. While at the Water Point I got the first of many loads of washing done. They could hang up and dry as we traveled along.

With no sign of the others we headed north out of town towards Bedourie. We stayed ahead of the line until we reached the first lot of gravel and this is where we were overtaken by everyone heading north. We were down to 30-50km/h on this corrugated section. Most of the RV’s that passed us did the right thing and slowed down until they got past but there were the usual couple of idiots who flew past.

We pulled in at Bedourie in the line up for fuel however it didn’t take very long. They had people at the bowers with their ATM machines so you didn’t even have to go inside to pay. That made the line go much quicker.

After a lunch stop we waited in town for Mandie and Pete for an hour but as they didn’t go past we made the assumption that they had gone past us in Birdsville while we were getting water and made the decision to go on to Boulia.

We had an uneventful drive through to Boulia however there was no sign of our friends. We can just hope they get our messages and get back to us. We topped up with fuel and parked in the Main Street where we could see all the vehicles as they came into town. We were starting to worry about Mandie and Pete. Where could they be?

We usually communicate via FB Messenger and Mandie is usually very quick to respond but today we got nothing. We waited until 6pm and decided to walk across to the police station to check that there hasn’t been any accidents between Birdsville and Boulia. The nice young lady constable was very helpful and recorded all ours and the Glasson’s details and searched for any notification of accidents. Luckily there have been none. She said it is very common out here to lose people for a day or two because the mobile service is poor and patchy or non-existent. She said she will keep following up and we should call again in the morning.

So after trying some more fruitless times to call Mandie and Pete on the UHF we got a response from Brian to say the rest of them had found a camp spot on the Boulia Racecourse Reserve. We made our way there in the dark guided by Brian’s directions and Dave turned his hazard lights on so we could see the flashing lights.

We quickly set up camp and joined them all around the camp fire. Everyone was talking about where Mandie and Pete could possibly be and in the end we all thought that as the Messenger messages looked like they were going to Maddie’s phone but she was not reading them that they must have a problem with the phone. They may even be way in front of us if they got by us in Birdsville and kept going.

We’d received a messages from Robert & Catie to say they were camping at Dajarra so they are only 150kms in front of us.

Helen cooked scones in the camp oven for desert served with jam and freshly whipped cream. What a treat!

Wherever Mandie and Pete are I hoped they had a good camp spot.

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.

This was the day that the world record for the number of people dancing the Nutbush & the Twist took place. The world record for the Nutbush was set at The Bash a couple of years ago where they had 2,330 people dance the Nutbush for five minutes. This year was the first time the Bash was attempting to break the record for the most number of people doing The Twist.

Most of our group participated proudly wearing our Makin’ Memories shirts. I thought we looked great. As we approached The Plaza we could see lots of people had made the effort to get dressed up. There was a cute group of Wally’s and a huge group of Riding Dinosaurs. Lots of groups had their own group shirts. The lady rocker from the group with the pink Hawaiian shirts had her group ready to Nutbush.

We all had to line up at the concert area gates and then we were allowed in and had to find the line number we’d been allocated to. Our group was in row 19. We were counted as we entered the concert area. Officials also went up and down the rows doing another count. It all has to be spit spot to become a world record.

We had a short 1 minute practice and then it was on. Not sure how many but I’m guessing about 2,500 people danced the Nutbush for the next five minutes. Oh the dust! Glad Mandie gave me a face mask. Many people were wearing bandanas. We did it! I think the record was broken but we would find out later in the day during the concert.

Next it was time to try for the Twist record. Quite a few people left the concert area. It had been very hot work doing the Nutbush for five minutes and some people had enough of the dust. All our group stayed and we twisted for five minutes in the hot sun and dust. Let’s hope we broke that record too!

The concert area opened at 12.15pm and we were all settled in with our group by 12.30pm.

Caitlyn Shadbolt opened this day’s concert. She is a young singer songwriter who rocked the arena with her catchy songs.

Following Catilyn the MC introduced the Big Red Bash Band who had been cobbled together a week ago. The original band were stuck in Covid lockdown areas so it was a rush to find suitable replacements. They arrived in Birdsville a week ago and rehearsed in the Birdsville Hall. They had to learn over 60 songs in that week. The drummer, Pete Drummond is from Dragon & Thirsty Merc, the bass player was Ian Perez, the keyboard player hails from Tasmania, the guitarist is Pete Robinson. Considering these guys hadn’t played together until last week they made an amazing band.

Wendy Matthews was up next, another Aussie singing legend. I was disappointed with her performance though. Her voice is not what it once was.

The Crackup Sisters came on in the break and introduced two people from the Australian Book of Records to announce that we’d broken the record for the number of people dancing the Nutbush with a total of 2,878. We didn’t break the world record for the Twist though but we did break the Australian record with 2,799 people twisting in the dirt.

It was fun and, along with the Drag Race, helped to raise over $70,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Fantastic effort.

The Aussie band Thirsty Merc were up next and man, can their lead singer play the keyboard. He’s awesome. Caitlyn Shadbolt joined the band as a backup singer. Her fiancé, Matt Smith, is their lead guitarist.

It was hot in the sun. Not a cloud was in the sky. There was a slight breeze though that blew the fine dust around. My body felt like it was desicating, drying out and every surface was covered in the powdery dust. I sat in my chair and baked the afternoon away.

At this point I still found it amazing to be there in the Simpson Desert miles from anywhere and that all these people have traveled from far and wide to attend the most remote music festival in the world.

It’s fun sitting in the concert area and watching the antics of the kids sand surfing down Big Red behind the main stage. Big Red towers above the stage. Every now and then the drone camera shows an aerial shot of the concert area on the big screens and it’s really amazing to see. Even though there’s a lot of people it doesn’t feel crowded. People have complied with the Covid rules and spaced themselves apart. Only 500 people at a time are allowed into the ‘mosh pit’ and there are marshalls on the gate to ensure the number isn’t exceeded.

The Crackup Sisters ran another of their silly competitions during the break. This one was a relay event with four teams of three competing. It was all a bit of chaos but fun to watch. The Crackup Sisters are certainly entertaining.

Darryl Braithwaite was up next and of course he had to finish his 40 mintue set with a rendition of ‘The Horses’. We all enjoyed his performance.

The Crackup Sisters then held a dog parade and gave out prizes for things like the ‘best dressed dog’, ‘the best dog trick’ and others. The Big Red Bash is one of the few music festivals in the world where you can bring your dog along. There is a separate camp area for those that bring their moggie along and a even a separate area within the concert area. Of course dogs must be on a lead at all times. We saw a great variety of pooches over the few days.

Simon Story from The Storey Players gave a short talk explaining how they take drama workshops to outback communities. During The Bash between 60 and 70 kids participated in the free workshops. We were shown a short film showcasing what some of the kids did at the workshops during The Bash.

Another rock legend Ian Moss was up next and I was a bit underwhelmed by his performance. He played without a band, just him and his guitar and I felt his voice was just not great on the day. His performance took us into sunset

The Crackup sisters were back in the break with one of their hula hoop routines. They are very funny and they can really swing those hoops.

Aussie icon John Williamson was up next. John has played at The Bash previously. In fact he was the first. The first one was in 2013 and held on the top of Big Red and John played to about 600 people. All supporters or runners in The Big Red Run, a desert run of 250km that was organised by Greg Donovan to raise money for research into Type 1 Diabetes. Greg’s son Stephen has Type 1 Diabetes and was the inspiration behind the run. Greg and Stephen did the 250km run together and went on to arrange The Big Red Run for a number of years. Now the whole Donovan family is employed full time organising and arranging The Big Red Bash and now The Mundi Mundi Bash.

John’s performance was brilliant. Most people would know his songs and lots of people were singing along. His music is so Australian and the atmosphere during his performance was such a happy one.

The Crackup Sisters came out in the last break to entertain us for the last time. They invited everyone to come along to their inaugural Bush Dance being held in their backyard at their house in Winton. The Bush Dance is being held to raise money to finish their house which will be a museum to outback entertainment when it is completed.

The final act of The Big Red Bash for 2021 was the Abba tribute band, Bjorn Again. They were fantastic. Not very many people were still in their chairs by the end of their performance. People were up dancing in the dust. What a great finish to the three days of great music.

The big event of the morning on Day 2 is the Drag Race. People pay to enter the Drag Race, get dressed up in drag, then run (or walk) from the start at the top of Big Red down to the finish line in The Plaza. Of course you have to walk up Big Red to get to the start line! There are prizes for the first three runners, the best three costumes and the best three groups of costumes. Some of the costumes were very creative. Four from our group participated and they looked fabulous. They were even selected in the top 50 and had to go up on stage at the end and parade in front of the whole crowd.

I climbed Big Red to get photos of our little group. Once the race started I ran down a bit further to get photos as they went by. Then I did it again, and again, and again until I caught up with them at the finish. My thighs were burning by the time I got to the bottom of Big Red. It’s hard work running downhill in the deep red sand!

It was all a lot of fun and raised $$$ for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The concert commenced this day with gates opening at 12 noon. We were all set up with our group by 12.30pm. Event organiser Greg Donovan welcomed everybody to day two followed by a short video of events and moments from the day before.

A special report was given by a guy from Queensland Health, who were there conducting Covid-19 tests. He let us know what symptoms to look for and to remind people to maintain social distancing, use the sanitiser and to let us know the good news that they hadn’t had a ‘positive’ test yet. Yay….we hoped it stayed that way.

It was another warm afternoon as we settled in to listen to the first artists up for the day, Vika & Linda. They rocked the Simpson with some new songs they’ve recorded whilst they haven’t been able to perform to live audiences.

Brian Cadd was next up. This guy might be getting old but he can still perform. His voice is not what it once was but, once a performer, always a performer. Brian Cadd has not changed his hair style since the sixties however his hair now is all white. While he was on stage there were lots of people on top of Big Red behind the stage including one guy flying a large kite. What an experience to be sitting here in the desert with amazing music and that incredible view of the giant sand dune that the festival is named after.

Brian Cadd was followed by another Aussie rock legend, Russell Morris. His voice sounds the same as it did back in the 70’s when I was in high school. I remember his music so well. He gave a great performance and I really enjoyed this one.

There was a large group a couple of rows in front of where we were sitting. Their whole group were wearing very distinctive bright pink Hawaiian shirts. One of the ladies, who I’m guessing would be in her 70’s, danced through the whole Russell Morris bracket. She’s a rocker from way back.

Chocolate Starfish were back for another set and this time they played their own music. Can’t say I liked it as much as when they did the covers the day before but that’s probably because I didn’t really know any of the songs.

Next up was Ross ‘The Boss’ Wilson, another old rocker. His performance was fabulous too as he sang many oldies.

As the sun was going down it was the turn for another Aussie legend, Glenn Shorrock. Glenn was the lead singer for the famous Aussie band Little River Band before going on to a successful solo career. He was also fabulous.

In between artists the Crackup Sisters organised games like tunnel ball, tug-o-war, performed on stage and generally kept the crowd entertained.

The sky put on an incredible sunset while we waited for the final act of the night. The one we’d come all this way for…..Paul Kelly. What can I say? What a show. It was every bit as good as I thought it was going to be. Paul Kelly’s distinctive sound rocked the Simpson. It was an amazing experience being in the audience for this great show. He finished his set and everybody kept cheering ‘more, more’. He came back on to the darkened stage alone and, lit by a single spotlight, Paul Kelly recited ‘Clancy of the Overflow’. There was a complete hush over the crowd. It was awesome. Then the band came back on and Paul Kelly sang, probably his most famous song, ‘Little Things’ to finish the set off. Wow, wow, wow.

We all meandered back to camp, thankful that our camp is so close, and settled around our campfire again. It had been another awesome day at The Big Red Bash.

Apparently an Air Guitar competition was held in the morning however I didn’t go down to The Plaza for that one. I did go down to watch the Crackup Sisters show again. The show was completely different to the previous day with lots of hula hooping and whip cracking. Those girls are very clever.

This day was the first day of the music festival and our group set up our chairs and stuff in the concert area about 12.30pm in time for the Official Opening and Welcome to Country. We got out our beach cart, loaded our chairs, drinks and warm jackets for later and wheeled it to the concert area. It was easier than carrying it.

The Welcome to Country included a half hour video that followed the adventures of local Aboriginal Elder, Don Rowlands, as he took members of his family into the Simpson Desert to tell them Dreamtime Stories and share in the knowledge of their ancestors. It was a lovely family story and I’m glad that Don is sharing his knowledge, culture and language with his family so that it won’t be lost.

The Crackup Sisters were the MC’s for the day and they were also the interim entertainment between music acts.

It was a hot sunny afternoon but once the sun went down it rapidly became cold and I was very glad of my Big Red Bash microfibre blanket to keep me snug. The atmosphere in the concert area was amazing. Everyone was careful to maintain social distancing by keeping groups apart and 2 metres from the row in front. Even in the ‘mosh pit’ area at the front of the stage people kept apart from each other. We enjoyed the music of The Chantoozies, Eurogliders, rocked to Sarah McCloud and enjoyed the mellow sounds of Busby Marou.

During the performance by Busby Marou it was time for Richard and I to make our way to our booked Helicopter ride. The heli landing area was way over the other side of Bashville and took about 15 minutes to walk there. When we arrived the flights were running a bit late so we had to wait. Our original time was 4.59pm and we eventually got on the chopper at 5.20pm. It was perfect really as the sun was going down and the sand hills really glowed in that light.

The chopper pilot was Hylton Ward whom we had met in Winton when we were on a tour with Red Dirt Tours run by Hylton’s wife Vicki. Hylton had sat up the back of the bus with us and he remembered meeting us. I’m sure we got a lot longer than the 12 minutes we’d paid for. It was worth every cent.

The Bashville site looks so incredible from the air. It is enormous and almost filled to capacity. There was even a new section that had to be created to fit in all the campers. It was easy to see the arc shape of the site from the air with the main stage front and centre. In front of the main stage is a large open space called the ‘Concert Area’. This is where festival goers bring their camp chairs and set up to listen to the music. On either side of the concert area is a long block of composting toilets. In the arc behind the concert area is The Plaza. This is where all the food vans and merchandise vendors are set up. It is also home to the the Medical Centre, the Covid Testing Tent and the Admin Marquee. The Crackup Sisters ‘house’ and a mini stage are also in this area. Behind The Plaza are ever widening arcs of camp sites.

By the time we got back to our chairs in the concert area the sun had gone down and we got to enjoy the music of the Black Sorrows and
Chocolate Starfish. Chocolate Starfish were brilliant. Their set was called ‘Best of the Best” and they played covers of many famous songs from the likes of Queen, Meatloaf and others. What a great voice their lead singer has!

It had been a fabulous start to the Big Red Bash.

We spent the day familiarising ourselves with Bashville. Some walked to the top of Big Red, others walked around the expanding camp sites, others walked to the sand dune behind our camp and Richard read his book.

I booked a ride on the helicopter for the next day. There are three seats in the chopper but the combined weight of the three passengers cannot exceed 230kgs. As Richard is 95kg and I’m 73kg in my boots that didn’t leave enough for another person unless they were a small 60kg so we paid for the three seats, $585 for a 12 minute ride. Expensive I know but it should be amazing to see Bashville from the air.

The Crackup Sisters Show was held in the morning at the Plaza in front of their ‘house’. These girls are from Winton in outback Queensland and put on a comedy show using their whip cracking, acrobatic and circus skills. They are very quick and brilliant at improvising. It was a funny show.

Catie stood in the queue for the Merchandise Tent for a couple of hours but she was able to get what everyone had ordered. A big thank you to Catie for being so patient and standing for such a long time.

Before we had left home our group had arranged to hold a ‘pot luck’ dinner. A group dinner where everyone contributed a meal to share. I had made lasagne. What a feast we enjoyed with such a great variety of delicious food. Our Makin’ Memories group are great cooks!

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.

What is The Big Red Bash?

It’s a 3 day music festival in one of the most remote places on the planet. It is held each July under the shadow of the most famous of Australia’s mighty sand dunes, Big Red.

The site has been nicknamed ‘Bashville’ and sits on the dry lakebed of Lake Nappanerica on Adria Downs Station near Birdsville, Queensland. Adria Downs Station, owned for over 80 years by the Brook Family, is an organic beef producer of Hereford beef. The property is 8,700 square kilometres in size.

The dry lake bed is graded and leveled each year and marked out by surveyors into a large arc shape with marked pedestrian walkways and roads. Front and centre is the huge stage and directly in front of that, facing Big Red, is the concert area. This area is fenced off and opens each day of the festival to allow people to bring their chairs and other paraphernalia and set up for the concert.

Behind the concert area is The Plaza. This arc is home to the food vendors, merchandise tents, The Crackup Sisters ‘house’ and a smaller stage for events such as the Air Guitar Competition, the finish of the Drag Race and fashion parade.

Behind that in ever-widening arcs are the large campsites, each marked out with little flags.

The ‘Bash’ has had most of Australia’s iconic musicians and singers perform over the years since the very first concert by John Williamson in July 2013. John played to about 600 people atop of Big Red to entertain the runners and volunteers of the Big Red Run, a 250km long desert run created by Greg Donovan to raise funds for Type 1 Diabetes research.

The event has gone on to see John Farnham, Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, Lee Kernaghan as headline acts. They’ve performed for progressively bigger crowds and in 2021 10,000 people are expected to ‘rock in the Simpson’.

The Big Red Bash has added other events to the program over the years such as the Drag Race, a race down Big Red by people dressed in drag, the Air Guitar Competition, the world record attempt at the number of people doing the ‘Nutbush and all of these events have an entry fee. The funds raised from these fun events all goes to The Royal Flying Doctor Service. Each year tens of thousands of dollars is given to RFDS to help keep them providing their vital service to outback patients.

So what is The Big Red Bash? It’s basically a big party of campers who come in all their variety of RV’s to camp in one of the most spectacular places in the outback and attend the most remote music festival in the world.

Now that all our group had arrived in Birdsville it was time to start our preparation for our travel out to Bashville. We all had 2 day Early Entry Passes which meant that we could travel out to Bashville on the Sunday. As long as we travel out in a group and arrive in that group we will be able to be camped together.

To gain entry to Bashville you need to exchange your e-tickets for wristbands and Early Entry car stickers. This is done at a stand set up at the Birdsville Information Centre. As expected there was a queue but it moved very quickly and efficiently. In no time at all we were processed. As our group met up after the ticket exchange we were approached by the official photographer for the Bash and she wanted to take a photo of our group in our colourful shirts. We were happy to oblige.

While we were having our photo taken I recognised Greg Donovan, the organiser and man responsible for the Big Red Bash. I approached him and had a brief chat and he is so relieved that the event is going ahead in spite of all the challenges Covid has thrown up.

No grey water can be emptied onto the ground at Bashville so everyone needed to empty their grey water tanks. There is also no water so water tanks needed to be topped up. Luckily there are lots of taps scattered around the Birdsville Common. There were queues at most of the taps on the Saturday as everyone was doing the same thing.

There are no dump points at Bashville either so everyone needed to empty their cassettes so we go out there with empty ones.

Once we’d done all that and our motorhome was ready to go we took Robert up on his offer to head out to the desert and check out Bashville and the incredible scenery of the Simpson Desert.

The road out to Big Red is mostly a tar road. Only the last few kilometres are gravel. The road travels over a few low sand dunes with large valleys in between. The sand hills go for miles in either direction. The Simpson Desert covers some 176,500 square kilometres and is the largest sand dune desert in the world. The sand dunes are the world’s longest parallel dunes and vary in height from 3 metres to around 30 metres. It is Australia’s fourth largest desert.

Munga-Thirri National Park includes the Queensland part of the Simpson Desert and goes all the way to Peoppel’s Corner where Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory intersect.

We knew as soon as we crossed over a large sand dune that the one in front of us was Nappanerica, or Big Red as it is popularly known. Apart from the sign telling us! Big Red is 40 metres high and is a very impressive sight when you see it for the first time. The closer we got the bigger it seemed.

At the bottom of Little Red Robert pulled over to lower the tyre pressure so we could make the crossing over the dune. It is most important to lower your tyre pressure as you won’t make it over with your tyres at highway pressure.

Once that was done it was time to tackle Little Red. I’m not kidding the road is not really a road just a sandy track that goes up over the dune. It is bumpy and you can hear the wheels digging in to the deep sand as you go up. Robert has done this before and he just kept the vehicle at a constant speed and we bumped our way to the top. We paused briefly at the top then headed back down, which is nearly as scary as going up!

There were a few vehicles at the bottom of Big Red waiting to have a turn at going to the top but we continued on and went further out into the desert. We crossed another couple of sand dunes before turning around and making our way back to Big Red.

Here we got in line to make out way to the top. So many vehicles don’t make it to the top however Robert didn’t hesitate when it was our turn and, again he just kept the car at a constant speed and up we went. The car seems to be on such a precarious angle as you go up and when you get to the top you feel like you are shooting into the sky but then the front wheels go over the rim and the car levels out. We’d made it to the top first go!

What a view from the top. Lots of spectators were on the top watching the vehicles make their attempts. There was lots of groaning when another attempt failed and loud cheers for those that make it. We didn’t see many make it first go though. It was great fun to watch and we stayed watching for an hour or so.

On the other side of the dune is Bashville. Wow it looked amazing from up there. The stage was already set up and some of the food vendors had already set up their trucks. The Admin and Merchandise marquees were up and the streets and campsites were all marked out with flags and signage. We could see lots of toilet blocks at various places around the camp area. It was amazing to think that in just a couple of days this place would be full of over 4,000 camps and roughly 10,000 people.

Bashville is situated on Adria Downs Station (8,700 square kilometres) and it borders Munda-Thirri NP. Bashville is set up on the dry lake bed of Lake Nappanerica. Adria Downs is an an accredited organic property and this is why no grey water can be let out on the ground at Bashville.

Seeing the sight from the top of Big Red we could appreciate the amount of work it takes to put on an event of this size in such a remote location. It truly is a unique event. My excitement was definitely building.

We made our way back to town and we all enjoyed a night around the campfire and we were all ready to get on the road at 8am.