The Mundi Mundi Bash!

What a great festival!  I have now been to my first bash and have experienced the interesting phenomenon of a campsite holding 9000 people, probably 500 dogs, every version of camper or caravan ever made and some of the most lethal prickles I (or rather Maggie May) have ever encountered.  Hence the embarrassing boots ... everyone was wearing them ... which she came to appreciate!  In fact, she was very reluctant to head off on a walk without them.  Carolyn Jerome (in the Yellow Peril) and I (I had even bought Van Morrison lights to make him more jazzy) joined the queue into the Mundiville campsite on Wednesday, 17th August.  It was surprising efficient with volunteers directing us to the dog section and our enormous site.

The campsite was huge!  There were streets and paths and composting toilets on many corners.  Then down to the plaza where there were food stalls, information booths, artists and (most importantly) the Merch tent!  I planned to spend a bit of money on the merch ... merchandise for those a bit confused.  

The first night, we took our chairs down to the stage area and watched the movie Paper Planes before the ABBA tribute band, Bjorn Again, rocked us.  It was a gentle introduction to the next three days with a few lessons.  Firstly, saying "we'll find you" to Robyn and Simon Price was just plain ridiculous!  Secondly, location, location, location!  We were in Row 5 and had a great view as well as good sound.  So that's where we ended up for the rest of the bash ... it might have taken some queuing to get 'our' spot and maybe a bit of a dash across the concert area, but it was worth it.

I could go through the lineup band by band, listing and critiquing each performer, but let's just introduce some favourites and some new (well, new to me) ones.  The very first band on Thursday was Leroy Johnson & the Waterbag Band, which wowed me with their combination of double bass, didgeridoo and great harmonies, blending traditional music with a bit of country.  Then Ash Grunwald was a dynamic favourite before the talented and very musical Busby Marou.  Unfortunately Richard Clapton hadn't realised that he REALLY should have retired years ago but who cares ... because the last act of the day was Midnight Oil ... and they were FANTASTIC!  Let's just leave it at that.

Unfortunately, the Eurogliders were just awful, as predicted by my new friend in the mosh pit the previous night.  He also told me to look out for Joe Camilleri's teeth ... they are perfect!  I asked him if he was a dentist, but no, he just admired his teeth.  And he was right!  Beautiful teeth and the Black Sorrows showed that you can be an older band and still rock 'n' roll with the best of them.  As did Russell Morris the next day.  Great voice, wonderful music.  The Pierce Brothers were dynamos (I bought some albums they were that good) and the Rolling Stones Revue was fun although it showed that aging rock stars really shouldn't take off their shirts!

I've missed out heaps but you get the drift.  Would I do it again?  Absolutely!  But, I'm sorry to say, not to see Jimmy Barnes.  Two hours of him screaming into the microphone was too much to bear, although the sound improved immensely if you put your fingers in your ears!  Sunday morning came and all the vans started leaving.  Again, it was a measured and well organised exit.  I left Mundi Mundi to head to Cockburn and a shower (!!!!) only to discover that the park was closed on a Sunday ... so I travelled on to Olary and a camp in a rest stop.  At least there was a pub!

Heading for the Bash!

Since leaving Brisbane, I've been discovering the delights of the RSL parmi, free camping with mosquitoes the size of Maggie and the joys of travelling in the same direction as thousands of people who are also going to the Mundi Mundi Bash.  

The interesting shire hall in Meandarra - almost in the same league as those School of Arts buildings

Muckadilla ... now who would have thought that such a little blip on the map would be such an interesting place.  The first thing Muckadilla is famous for relates to Freddy (Ludwig) Leichhardt (he of tree-carving fame).  He set off from a station close to Muckadilla, attempting to trace Major Mitchell's route to the Barcoo River and then make his way to the Swan River.  He was never seen again ... his fate is unknown.  The second interesting thing is that Muckadilla was the home of Frank Forde, one of our esteemed prime ministers.  Who? I hear you ask.  Well, he was prime minister ... from 6 to 15 July, 1945 ... earning him the distinction of being the shortest-serving prime minister in Australia's history (they didn't mention THAT on the plaque!).  Muckadilla was also the place that the quote "Country good enough to fatten a crowbar" was coined.  Personally, I've never heard this before but it makes me giggle every time I say it.

At the Mucka Pub.  There was also a Bench of Bullshit.

After travelling through Amby, Mitchell, Womalilla and Mungallala, I reached Morven where I decided to stay at the recreation reserve.  The weather was foul - gusty wind and rain - so I was keen to select a site that was a bit protected.  I'd just found one and was about to pull in when two huge vans zipped around me and took MY spot!  When I got out to reason with them, the woman said "We have kids".  Should I have commiserated with her?  Or said "Oh, that's fine then ... you're more important than me" or just slunk away ... I did the latter.  But it still rankles!  I should have said "I have a border collie" or ... any suggestions gratefully received!

Morven had a hut made of kerosene tins - there used to be five of these and they were built to house people who were homeless in the Great Depression.

Then it was off to Charleville, where I met up with Phill and Liz (my fellow travellers to South Australia last year).  This was a bit of fun and it was great to swap some travel stories and catch up.  They are off to Winton to play with dinosaur bones (they are going to be cleaning and discovering them) before heading to the coast to dive.

Bloody red sand ... all through her fur, on the paws and everywhere in the van!

School of Arts, Charleville

The famous Hotel Corones

These are Vortex Guns.  Used in Europe in the late 1800s to dispel hail-bearing clouds, it was thought that they could also bring rain to an Australia deep in drought.  Unfortunately, they didn't.  What they did do (in the trials at Charleville, Roma and Harrisville) was absolutely nothing, or (more excitingly) explode, narrowly missing spectators.

Bilbies ... super cute but seriously randy!

Saying goodbye to Phill and Liz, I headed to Cunnamulla.  Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea because I really enjoyed this town.  I shopped and walked and watched the fabulous light and sound show at the old railway station but ... and it's a BIG but ... this town has the most vicious, loud, aggressive, angry dogs!  All the front yards had at least a metre of wire added on top of the front fence so that the pitbull/bull arab/german shepherd/insane cattle dog couldn't get over and rip Maggie's throat out.  Poor thing!  She hated it when I said "let's go for a walk".  By the way, I met Mavis and she offered me her huge Queenslander on a double block for $150K.  Do I look desperate for a home?!?

The Cunnamulla Fella

The smallest Queenslander I've ever seen!

But enough of this!  It was time to start heading towards Broken Hill and the Mundi Mundi Bash.  So I left sunny Queensland, crossed the sunny border into New South Wales and then the weather turned to shit!  Cold!  Wet!  Windy!  I have been spoiled with my traveling so far since the weather has been, on the whole, quite good.  But now I'm back to three layers, raincoat and puffer jacket and even the Oodie!

Gulargambone was my next favourite spot (apart from the torrential rain) and I stayed for a couple of days in one of the best caravan parks of the trip!  The camp kitchen was about the size of my house and included a huge firepit, pizza oven, two ovens, two stoves, seating for about 50 people AND Peter cooked damper for us in the camp ovens.  If I'd stayed another night I could have had roast beef!  The town was obviously working hard to stay afloat, with a community owned cafe and various art works and sculptures around the town.

The Castlereagh River, after the rain

Galargambome is affectionately known as Galah and so it comes as no surprise that there are galahs (corrugated iron ones) all around the town.

What to do with a deserted main street?  Paint the abandoned shops in bright colours and use the shopfronts to display artworks.

After my pleasant and soggy stay at Gulargambone, I visited Narramine (with a hi to Glen McGrath) where the local butcher has a gorgeous shop complete with tiles dating from 1906.  On to Nyngan then Cobar and I'm now just outside Wilcannia, ready to get to Broken Hill tomorrow.  Mundi Mundi is just around the corner and I'm starting to get quite excited.  I've been listening to Russel Morris and the Oils as I drive the boring, straight roads, dodging the goats in time to Beds Are Burning.

STDs, Rollercoaster Roads & One-horse Towns

Goodbye to Emu Park and Yeppoon and hello to a series of little towns/villages/hamlets/pubs in the middle of nowhere.  And Brisbane.  Talk about extremes!

The bats of Emu Park ... noisy critters!  And bat shit is VERY hard to clean off your van.

I've fallen in love with the song of the butcher bird

For all of you who would like to invest in cheap real estate in a delightful little town, can I suggest Mount Morgan.  It was my first stop after leaving Emu Park and was delightful!  A town that was founded on gold mining, it is now a relaxed little tourist destination with a population similar to Mansfield.  The buildings that date from the boom mining time are quite splendid and have been carefully maintained.  There were a few shops and good coffee and I could have bought a great sounding house for $168K.  OK, it might need a little bit of work but ...

A feature of many towns is the "School of Arts" which is often a heritage building that is still in use.  The Australian School of Arts was based on the British Mechanics Institute with the first one in Queensland being built in Brisbane in 1849.  Their aim was to provide education and services in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects and "The Arts" means manual arts or practical skill training.  Many councils still use these buildings to house libraries, social services and information centres ... but all that aside, they are usually lovely buildings.

After the delights of Mount Morgan, I headed south west until I reached the Leichhardt Highway.  This looked to be an interesting route and one that I hadn't travelled before so off I went.  And almost immediately regretted it!  The road was is very poor repair (I think it had been flooded once too often) and there were BIG potholes, water over the road, HUGE trucks but the worse thing was the undulations.  It was like driving on a sine curve (just had to throw in a maths term) ... up and down, down and up.  Poor Maggie was bounced off the bed a couple of times!  Bad roads aside, I visited some lovely little places ... Dululu with the coffee van in the middle of nowhere, Theodore with nothing much and then Taroom.  I stayed in Taroom (great op shop and pub ... I didn't win the meat tray) before heading to Bowenville (toilets, pub ... nope, that's it) where I stayed behind the pub.  This will go down as one of the more memorable pub stays, mainly for the rather colourful language.  "Do ya want a f@#kin' drink or your f@#kin' meal first?"

Boab trees along the main street of Taroom

This rather magnificent gum is one of the Leichhardt trees, situated in the main street of Taroom.  Naughty Freddy Leichhardt was a graffiti artist of the 1800s and tended to carve his name into trees as he went along discovering those same trees.  The LL 1844 that he etched into the coolibah is now gone, the bark growing over the letters.  Tree ... 1, explorer ... 0.

The f@#kin' Bowenville Hotel

So then it was back to Maleny, where I had a delightful time again with Jenny and Dave and Maggie was entertained/terrorised by the two ragdoll cats in the camp next to us.  Then on to Brisbane ...

The main reason for returning to Brisbane was to watch my nephew Peter in a show called Sunny Tribe District (or STD).  This started out as a 10 minute show in 2018 and had been expanded into a full length show.  And it was so funny!  I laughed and laughed and was very proud of Peter who was superb!  What a show!  Hopefully this won't be the last of STD and they will take it on the road ... if you ever get the chance to see it, DO!  I stayed in Brisbane for an extra couple of days ... it was lovely having time with brother Simon and Samantha ... and it gave me a chance to recover from my Covid vaccination.

So now I've left Brisbane and have headed back to my little towns and free camps.  I spent a lovely couple of days at Caliguel Lagoon, on the Condamine River and now have meandered to Meandarra (sorry, a bit of a play on its name) and on to Surat.  Maggie and I are quite relaxed because we have nearly two weeks before I need to be in Broken Hill.  So who knows where we'll get to next!

Peak hour in the main street of Meandarra

Juvenile Nankeen Night-heron

The beautiful reflections in Caliguel Lagoon