Heading to The Big Red Bash

Hi Kerry. RACQ Trip Planner suggests a time of 5 hrs 9 min for Windorah to Birdsville. Cunnamulla - Eulo - Toompine - Quilpie - Windorah should not be a challenge. Just watchout for trucks on the single lane bitumen sections as they will not move off the bitumen especially if the shoulders are wet. If you see one approaching give yourself plenty of time to move off to the side and come to a stop or just crawl along until they have passed. Let them know your intentions on UHF channel 40. Overtaking one will require even more planning and communication. Enjoy.

Yes that is very conservative. Last time I as out there I towed my soft road van from Birdsville to Windorah. I departed around 0900 and got to Windorah around 1600. I slowed a bit on some of the rough stretches but in the main I was travelling on average around 80 km/h on the gravel. The 110 km of bitumen on the Windorah end was travelled at around 90 km/h. I made 4 stops including a long lunch at Deon's Lookout.

Google maps gives a straight run bypassing Yowah as 300 km or 3.5 hours. Via Charleville 411 km and an extra hour. Diverting into Yowah will add 5s km to the trip plus the extra time you wish to spend there. I would tow my van up through Toompine rather than the long way around through Charleville.

That time of nearly 12 hours would be right if you needed to refuel at Windorah to or returning from the Big Red concert.
Well not quite Kerry but we were through 2 days after it finished last year (coming down from Diamantina) and locals told me it took some considerable time to get fuel, the que was for hundreds of metres.
Allow for at least 1 hour if you need to refuel in Windorah

Hi Kerry

There is great camping at Windorah on the banks of the Cooper around 10 kilometres out of town.

The only way it would take you that time of nearly 12 hours to do that drive would be if you sit on that 33 kph., or head car or tyre trouble.

From memory you should do it in between 5 and 6 hours easy, including a good stop at Dion's Lookout.



Cheers



Stephen

The Eulo - Toompine Road is a nice drive - if doing it don't drive past Yowah - leave yourself a bit of time to check it out. It is interesting. IMHO a paper map will give youall the info you need. Google maps are useless out here. I'll say that once again - useless. Toni

Last time I drove Birdsville to Windorah it took us around 12 hours to do......but we did go via Cordillo Downs and Haddon Corner to do it...lol.

We went to the Bash last year. A great experience. Due to the heavy widespread rain there were lots of road closures so we went from Bourke to Quilpie in a day (easy) and turned left at Cunnamulla and took the Eulo-Toompine Rd which was fine. Then drove Quilpie to Birdsville in a day (easy). We did leave an hour before sun up from Quilpie and there were lots of roos on the road to Windorah. We hit one but incurred no damage to us.

If the roads hadn't been closed we would have gone via Hungerford, Thargomindah, Innaminka and Cordillo Downs. A slower trip and an extra day.

As others have said long queue for fuel at Windorah - took us about 50 mins. Filled up at Birdsville when we got there. They ran out of fuel later that day until tanker came afternoon of the following day.
Cheers Steve