2024 July Big Red Bash
Having enjoyed the ‘Late for Woodstock’ festival with Ruth & Kelvin in 2023, we’d all decided to do the iconic Birdsville Big Red Bash music festival in 2024. Thousands of people from around the Australia – and the world – make the journey to experience the most remote music festival on the planet – under the open skies of Australia’s Simpson Desert. ‘Big Red’ is the name given to a particular sand dune that marks the symbolic edge of the Simpson Desert.
Birdsville is a tiny outback town about 1600km west of the Sunshine Coast – normal population about 150. However up to 11,000 converge on the town in preparation for the 3-day music festival, due to start on 2nd July that year. Together with Ruth & Kelvin, we’d booked an ‘Early Entry’ pass so we could enter ‘Bashville’ on 30th June and be well settled in time for the opening day. Bashville is the name they give to the campsite where the festival is held. We also planned to stay on an extra night after the event to give all the other vehicles time to depart; there are only a few roads heading out from Birdsville, so they would all be busy. Ruth & Kelvin have a caravan, but Keith and I would be camping. Kelvin lent us his trailer so we could fit everything in – we had to be totally self-sufficient (including water) for the 7-8 days we’d be out in the desert. In anticipation, we bought some preserving jars and Keith pre-prepared various meals that could be re-heated – as well as freezing meat for BBQs.
We also wanted to make the 1600km drive to Birdsville part of the adventure, so we planned to take the (comparatively) southern road there and return by the slightly more northerly ‘direct’ route. That way we’d get to explore some more of Queensland. We also booked into the Birdsville Hotel for the night of the 29th of June so we could be washed and clean before our week of camping.
We had all thought of leaving the Sunshine Coast on about Sunday 23rd to enjoy a leisurely trip via Goondiwindi, Cunnamulla, Thargomindah, Innamincka then Birdsville. This is the more ‘southerly’ route to Birdsville.
As luck would have it, we returned from our holiday in Japan on the 5th of June, to find a letter from the Sunshine Coast University Hospital offering me a date of 23rd June for surgery to remove a skin cancer from my nose. I thought it was impressive that they were offering to do surgery on a Sunday! I hastily confirmed my acceptance of the offer and let Ruth & Kelvin know that we’d postpone our departure until 24th. They decided to leave on the Sunday as planned and we’d all rendezvous in Birdsville. On the 21st I was dismayed to receive a phone call postponing the surgery until the 24th! I accepted but emphasized that I needed to be put at the top of the list for that day. Keith and I duly packed the ute and trailer with all our camping equipment – and re-visited our proposed route to take the ‘direct’ way. Since I was not supposed to put my head down following the surgery, we figured that camping was out of the question, so now it was a case of trying to book accommodation – along a route that 2-3 thousand other vehicles were taking! Luckily, we managed to book rooms at various pubs/hotels along the way.
I duly turned up at the hospital early on the Monday morning and was offered either a general or local anaesthetic. Without admitting that we were about to embark on a 1600km road trip, I opted to have the surgery (including skin graft) under local anaesthetic! It was somewhat disconcerting listening to all the activities while one surgeon operated on the cancer on my left nostril (very close to the eye) and another took a section of skin from in front of my right ear for the graft! By 9.20am I was out of surgery and 30 minutes later I was discharged with instructions to return the following Monday to have my stitches removed – well, that wasn’t going to happen! I had checked with the Bash organisers who assured me that there would be doctors and nurses on site. I rang Keith and he picked me up in the ute with the trailer behind – and off we set.
Anybody who knows me knows that I am a very nervous passenger when Keith is driving, and after about an hour, when we were finally out on the open road, my blood pressure was so high from the stress that there was blood coming through the dressings. Now, in view of where the cancer was removed, I had a dressing over my nose and raised up over the graft and extending over my left cheek. It was just where my glasses rested. We pulled over at the next town, and I bought some flesh-coloured tape to cover the bloody dressing – and insisted on taking over the driving. We spent the first night at Miles, about 360km west of home, the second at Charleville, another 400km west, the third at Windorah (460km) and finally caught up with Ruth & Kelvin at Betoota, a ghost town about 160km from Birdsville. The town has been designated as Australia’s smallest – the only facilities are a racetrack, a dry weather airstrip, a cricket field, and the Betoota Hotel. Kelvin kindly helped Keith put up our little ‘overnight’ tent and we enjoyed a meal at the hotel, which was doing a roaring trade with all the ‘Bashers’. I think Ruth & Kelvin were somewhat appalled at my appearance…
As we were really in the outback, we had no internet on our phones, so were all dismayed to hear that rain was forecast for Birdsville on the following Sunday. Rain in the desert is very unusual in winter, and it doesn’t take much rain to turn the red dirt roads of the region to mud – as a result, the organisers were calling for everyone to enter early. We had paid extra money to be allowed early entry and now everyone was being sent in… The next day we drove into the town of Birdsville and collected our passes and bought a few last-minute supplies and headed west to Bashville. They were quite organised with the queues of utes and caravans and sent everyone off to designated camping areas. Ruth & Kelvin requested a camping area (with us) close to toilet amenities, and we were duly directed to adjoining sites just across the track from a set of five ‘portaloos’. We set up our tent while Kelvin positioned his caravan so we had a nice clear communal area to enjoy.
That night the heavens opened – and the ground turned to sticky mud. Anybody venturing out gathered more mud with every step, until eventually they lost balance and fell over. Not so dangerous for young people, but pretty treacherous for older folk like us. And any vehicles still on the tracks were slipping and sliding – and some becoming bogged. On the Monday I was supposed to be having my stitches out, but it was so dangerous that I couldn’t leave the tent. We even had to pee into a bucket – with a lid, purchased especially for that eventuality!
Tuesday was ‘Big Blue Day’ – a special event within the Bash aimed at raising funds for Type 1 Diabetes Research. Participants are encouraged to wear blue clothing and accessories, such as hats or wigs, to show their support and participate in a world record attempt for the largest human image of a country. We’d all bought blue outfits for the occasion but due to the hazardous conditions, we couldn’t leave our campsite. Tuesday was also the first day of music and we missed that, too – but at least it wasn’t raining.
By Wednesday the ground had solidified a bit, and we were finally able to venture out. The ‘tracks’ between each camping area were rutted and it would be easy to break an ankle or leg if you over-balanced. Keith and I helped each other and managed to reach the outskirts of the stage area and found the first aid tent. One of the nurses had worked for a plastic surgeon and was quite excited to be able to remove my stitches – but in view of the muddy conditions, the doctor insisted that the wound be covered with a dressing to try to keep it sterile. I looked awful, with a black, swollen eye and nose made worse by the dressing!
Having made it to the stage area, we explored the merchandise tents and food stalls before returning to get Ruth & Kelvin and our camp chairs. We were able to enjoy the music that afternoon but decided it was still too dangerous to try to find our way back after dark. We found a track that was comparatively dry and flat, but it involved a long detour around the entire campsites. The music and the atmosphere were great – it was just a huge shame that we hadn’t been able to enjoy it all.
Thursday was the last day of entertainment as well as the Nutbush line-dance day. The iconic line dance is performed to the song Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner and raises funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Apparently, most Australians learn the line dance as part of dancing lessons at school, but Keith and I had needed to go online to learn the steps. It’s a very Australian thing and we enjoyed joining with the other 2,752 festival-goers doing their bit.
The Bash organisers announced that further rain was forecast for the weekend therefore, on advice from the local police, they were forced to evacuate everyone on the final day, rather than stagger the departures, so approximately 3,000 vehicles were all heading out either north or east, hastily trying to beat the forecast rains. We packed up and drove back to Birdsville to try to cancel our campsite booking (for the following night) and to find accommodation for that night. Birdsville was entirely booked out, as was Bedourie, the next town about two hours’ drive north. I finally managed to book a hotel room at Boulia, a total of 400km north of Birdsville. We decided to stay there for two nights to recover from the harrowing time we’d had!
From there we headed east to Longreach (540km), Emerald (416km) and Roma (402km) before heading home (510km). In all, we ended up driving 3,900km in 10-days (and it cost $1860) – so won’t be doing the Big Red Bash again! Exhausting and disappointing – for both us and the organisers. But it was one of those iconic experiences one has to do!