Birdsville races

On the map of Queensland, it says 'famous hotel'. Brian, the fierce looking, soft spoken manager of the Birdsville hotel welcomes us. He has been planning this event for a year and seems completely on top of things.

Just to give you an idea of how friendly people living here are: They drove up a baby cot from the next town (360KMs away). They gave us a couple of bottles of wine, they came to ask every day how we were doing and invited us to eat with the crew.

The races are something to behold: The Birdsville races: where the dust never settles. In the sweltering heat of the Simpson Desert horses race in a cloud of dust. Bookies from all over Australia are yelling numbers to get people to bet.

We drove out to ‘big red’ the largest red-sand dune in the Simpson Desert. Not the smartest thing to do, as it’s a 2 hour drive on a “road” with a warning sign: Travel on these roads is dangerous; you must warn the authorities of your destination and expected arrival. We cheerfully ignore the message and make it to ‘big red’.

We make many new friends, We're invited to NSW and VIC whenever we like.

We lose money as we're no good at betting on horses.

We drink litres and litres of water.

We (have to) show Kieran to every woman out here in the desert.