Gismo Queen and her King

What an awesome day! Firstly, camp is full of considerate people as there were really no sounds until 8am. Apart from the sunrise scenic flight taking off that woke me initially! The sun was shining and there were no clouds.

We headed out to Big Red at about 10ish, all loaded up with coffee machines and gas cooker to froth our milk for morning tea. It is 36km from Birdsville to Big Red and given the concert was relocated due to poor roads, we thought it might take awhile. But it was pretty good so we arrived at Little Red, the smaller of the sand dunes in this line and the official entry to the Simpson Desert, at 11am. There were plenty of people there and one of the scenic helicopters had relocated from the main Birdsville airport to out there to do 5 minute scenic flights over Big Red and the original concert area and campground - all for $80. As we fired up the 12V espresso machines in the back of the LandCruiser, we tried to swap a capucino for a flight but to no avail. We enjoyed our morning tea while watching boys with their toys trying to get up the steepest part of Little Red, and the helicopter landing in front of us. The wildflowers were also pretty amazing!

After morning tea, we drove up the main part of Little Red, which is the actual road that takes you into the Simpson, to Mount Dare and then Alice Springs. From the top, we walked up a couple of the ridge lines - one to watch the boys try and get up the steep part not three metres below us. The 4WDs like ours had no problems but many of the more common utes struggled without weight in the back. We also watched kids boogie boarding down the sand dunes and took in the magnificent view. The dunes are about 30 metres high and are very vegetated at the moment, due to the significant rainfall. Not quite the image everyone had of the desert with barren red soil and moving sand dunes.

It was fascinating to watch everyone there and it was glorious to do it on such a nice day. After an hour and a half, we followed the track around to the east side of Big Red which overlooked the dry lake bed that was to have been the concert area and campground. Again, Big Red wasn't the image one has in mind of desert sand dunes. It didn't seem quite as steep up the eastern side - until we walked it! At the top, we were able to watch other boys and their toys trying to climb the steeper western side of Big Red. This was a bit more challenging and it took most vehicles several goes. From the top, we looked out over what was meant to be the campground and tried to imagine what it would have been like. Ah well.

Then it was back into camp for a late lunch, and some reading in the sun - in shorts and singlet as it had gotten quite warm! Later, we headed into town to see what had changed since yesterday with regards to the concert venue and to have a drink at the iconic Birdsville Hotel - where the planes practically taxi to the front verandah.

There's a lot more people in now, and the campground is a lot busier. The caravans/campers/tents and swags stretch for over a kilometre. We went for a wander around again tonight - checking out the newcomers and the various set ups.

Then it was time for pre dinner drinks, our campfire, dinner, and some more DVD watching on the outside Patriot cinema.

I have finished writing this at 10:25pm. We'll see what time in the middle of the night I can get service to post it. We get Telstra signal well enough, but with 6,000 people trying to access voice and data on multiple devices, it is nigh on impossible to even make a phone call. Last night I was woken at 3:35am and by chance then tried the internet on my iPad and got on, so the blog was updated. Let's see what time than happens tonight (if at all).