4th July - Camp Bashville.

Lovely sleep last night, no pressure of getting up early. Slept till 6.30, then the necessary loo stop. It's chilly out, so back to tent to upload and finalise some blog posts. 

Today the actual Big Red Bash music festival starts with two hours of Missy Higgins to kick it off at 5.45. 

So it's a lazyish day. We cooked up the leftover meat and veg for roast sandwiches for lunch, then a bunch went to look around at some of the rigs. I stayed and cleaned up a bit and cooked up a one pan tomato lasagne ready for tea. 

Now sitting around having a relax. Might go for a walk and then get packed up ready for our first night at the Bash. 

Checked out the Bash plaza with food vendors and a few other folks selling stuff -there is Redarc, Track trailers, a fundraiser for Birdsville State School, some indigenous language booksellers, plus other bits and pieces. There is also a windscreen repair tent and. Knife sharpening truck. 

Meg and Mary had been talking about 'she -wee's' and lo and behold one of the stalls in the Bash Plaza were selling them.

Looking to the stage, from Plaza, with Big Red in the background.

Stage area.

The MC's are the Crack Up Sisters from Winton, this is their shack in the Plaza.

Welcome

Food includes a huge KFC truck and construction with Kentucky buckets and a slide, Mexican, fish n chips, coffee etc. there is also a most amazing concert arena with the Big Red Sand dune as a backdrop, some living and some dead and sculptural coolibah trees. 

The Plaza

Queueing up waiting for gates to open. 

KFC were here, some sort of promotion, no sales.

A car.

Track Trailer were one of the sponsors and launched a new TVan and Van at the BRB.

The new awning on the latest model TVan. It can be yours for $83K.

Another sponsor was Amarok, they had two cars up on Big Red on the first night.

We are now sitting in the sand on our chairs listening to Missy Higgins - her songs tell great stories and she fills in the gaps with some humorous and moving explanations. Quite hard to believe that all these people are out here on the edge of the Simpson Desert for this festival. 

Our seats for the night.

Here we are ready and waiting.

The Crack up Sisters and Bilbie.

 

Some cool clouds for sunset and a nicely located dead tree. 

Some of the crowd on Big Red, behind the stage area.

Big Red on the big screen, and as a backdrop. 

A local elder welcoming us to country.

Dead tree sunsetting.

The colours change, minute by minute.

Missy was brilliant.

Missy performing as the sunset provided a most spectacular background

The crowd.

Great lighting too, using the sandhill, hard to capture in picture though.

KFC truck and area lit up.

Lighting on Big Red. 

KFC in the sunset.

Missy

Band

Lights on Big Red

Missy belting it out. 

Home after an extra encore from Missy. Phew!! 7000 people in a dusty lakebed stir up a lot of dust as they walk back to camp. 

Tea eaten, drinks drunk. Clean up and into bed just after 11.00. 

Plan is to leave at 7am and head up Big Red for some sunrise shots. Let's see how that plays out tomorrow