Birdsville QLD

After so many days of back-to-back travel, it was time for a rest in Birdsville, a town of approximately 115 people on the eastern edge of the Simpson Desert, just north of the Queensland-South Australia border. We had planned to stay for two nights, but extended to a third night when we heard from the crew of heroes who stayed behind with our trip leader to await the desert recovery, that they were on their way just one day behind schedule.

Birdsville is a town with a bit of everything – history, adventure, unique flora, a bit of culture in the form of a huge music festival we’d only just missed called the Big Red Bash (the 7,000 attendees nearly overwhelmed Birdsville’s stock of supplies), a famous pub, a famous bakery, and quite a bit more that I’m sure we didn’t even touch on.

First, we had to take a photo in front of the iconic Birdsville Hotel. There’s a bar in the hotel called the Green Lizard Room, which has a big painting of a – you guessed it – green lizard. But that’s not why it’s called that…in 1986, a huge storm suddenly rolled in, and Birdsville was cut off from supplies unexpectedly for weeks. Everything began to dwindle, and the bar ran out of first beer, then wine, then rum, gin, and vodka, and then everything else – until the only cocktail they were able to serve was something crafted from creme-de-menthe and lemonade called the “green lizard”. The name stuck.

If you’ve got keen eyes, you’ve spotted that the yellow Jeep in the background of our Birdsville Hotel photo isn’t actually our Jeep. We were so interested to see another yellow Jeep in Birdsville (they aren’t exactly common anywhere, much less at a town in the middle of the Outback), but we couldn’t find the owners that night.

Luckily, they spotted us the next day, and stopped by to say hello! Kamil and Steph are on a trial run for their new business – Australian 4×4 Adventure. They’re hoping to run tours soon to the less seen parts of Australia – which we thought was awesome – never mind that they obviously have impeccable taste.

After packing up camp, we were glad to rinse off the dust and sand of the desert with a lovely hot shower at the Birdsville Caravan Park, and right afterward it was time for the Jeep to get the same treatment. Birdsville, as with many towns located on the Great Artesian Basin, has a hot Artesian bore. They use the bore water for most of the town’s water supply, and most interestingly for a low-temperature geothermal power station which generates about 40% of the town’s power.

They also supply a hose, for your vehicle to have a lovely hot shower of its own and rinse off the dust from the road.

After the Jeep was nice and clean, we decided to check out the old Birdsville hospital, built in 1953 and containing an interesting collection of equipment and techniques formerly used (and some still used) in the practice of Outback medicine.

And when we say hospital – you may be thinking of something larger than the 3-room building that this was (reception, patient room, sitting room/chapel), although it’s true that some of the old building was closed off, so perhaps there was more “behind the curtain” that we didn’t see.

As part of the displays at the hospital we particularly enjoyed this photo that was taken by two members of the Royal Flying Doctor Service…

It’s worth it to pause and acknowledge the amazing service that the Royal Flying Doctors provide to outback towns like Birdsville (and no wonder it’s needed what with putting children on top of crocodiles), and even more remote areas like homesteads and stations which can be 300km or more from any hospital. Nick and I found this map somewhere along our journey, which helps to convey the staggering scale of the Royal Flying Doctors service areas:

No other country on earth has anything like it. Nick and I are definitely fascinated by the RFDS. If you’re interested to learn more the John Flynn museum in Cloncurry QLD is worth a visit, and I read this book ((link to book)) last year and very much enjoyed the stories that the author collected from real doctors, nurses, and pilots who were in the RFDS.

Birdsville is also notable for the Birdsville Bakery, where the specialty is curried camel pies – unfortunately, they were out of stock of almost everything (thanks, Big Red Bash!) so we just bought a couple loaves of bread to take with us (excellent, rivalling Farina’s), and paused outside to admire their small garden of Sturt Desert Pea (the state flower of South Australia).

And with that, after 3 nights in Birdsville it was time for us to hit the road again – heading north, to escape the freezing cold mornings and desert dust!!

MVP: We can’t believe we haven’t yet mentioned our on-board air compressor, and quick tyre deflator. Reducing the amount of air in your tyres is absolutely essential for sand driving and when off-roading, and makes it vastly more comfortable to drive on corrugated roads too. However, driving with a low tyre pressure on sealed roads is dangerous, so often we’ll need to change our tyre pressure multiple times in one day. The quick deflator, and onboard compressor, makes this job a million times easier (and it’ll be even easier once we buy a second deflator and Pam can help too!).

So, Where Exactly Is This?
Since this post is focused on a city, here’s a map of Birdsville! You can also follow us live at this link – our satellite device pings our shared map frequently.