Birdsville Races - Dead and gone.

[walrus]

I was idly thinking of attending the Birdsville races by air - Covid permitting.

 

‘’I noticed a thread on another aviation website criticizing the shire council for prohibiting under wing camping apparently on liability grounds. There was talk of an appeal to the council…

 

‘’When I looked at the Birdsville races website, the reason the council has banned under wing camping is obvious - money!

 

The Council bastards have partnered with a commercial tent mob and want $520 for a single person tent in their camp ground for visitors coming by air!

 

http://www.rentatent.com.au/rentatent/events/view/71

 

I have started a list of places not to visit and Birdsville is now the second entry, after YMMB.

[turboplanner]

8 hours ago, walrus said:

I was idly thinking of attending the Birdsville races by air - Covid permitting.

 

‘’I noticed a thread on another aviation website criticizing the shire council for prohibiting under wing camping apparently on liability grounds. There was talk of an appeal to the council…

 

‘’When I looked at the Birdsville races website, the reason the council has banned under wing camping is obvious - money!

 

The Council bastards have partnered with a commercial tent mob and want $520 for a single person tent in their camp ground for visitors coming by air!

 

http://www.rentatent.com.au/rentatent/events/view/71

 

I have started a list of places not to visit and Birdsville is now the second entry, after YMMB.

What's wrong with YMMB?

 

[SSCBD]

1 hour ago, turboplanner said:

What's wrong with YMMB?

 

Where is that I thought we agreed on this forum we would use names

[turboplanner]

10 hours ago, walrus said:

I was idly thinking of attending the Birdsville races by air - Covid permitting.

 

‘’I noticed a thread on another aviation website criticizing the shire council for prohibiting under wing camping apparently on liability grounds. There was talk of an appeal to the council…

 

‘’When I looked at the Birdsville races website, the reason the council has banned under wing camping is obvious - money!

 

The Council bastards have partnered with a commercial tent mob and want $520 for a single person tent in their camp ground for visitors coming by air!

 

http://www.rentatent.com.au/rentatent/events/view/71

 

I have started a list of places not to visit and Birdsville is now the second entry, after YMMB.

What's wrong with Moorabbin?

 

[Flightrite]

YBDV (Birdsville for the hurt) used to be a great adventure in the 70 & 80's, a true outback wilderness, now just another commercial cesspool:-( As mentioned money/greed have taken over as well as the fear of litigation!:-( Glad I had the chance to fly into there many times before it was ruined:-(

Edited July 26, 2021 by Flightrite

[Thruster88]

We enjoyed our trip to Birdsville in may 2019. Would not consider going for the races, zero appeal for me. Pub was great with nice accommodation.  

[walrus]

Postponed till April 2022. Isn’t Karma a bitch? The council has succeeded in alienating the “regulars” through a grab for cash. Now where will their customers come from if we have opened our borders by then? Everyone will have left for Europe, Asia and the USA.

 

‘’To put it another way, Council has turned what was once a laid back country race meeting into an “event’ - doubling or tripling the price in the process and forgetting that events compete with other events. They don’t always cover their costs.

 

The same thing happened with Polo in Melbourne. It used to be a casual event - bring the dog and the kids, bring rug, picnic basket and esky. Back the wagon up to the edge, get out the chairs and enjoy….

 

‘’Now it’s big$$$ - no  BYO, kids, dogs, rugs and chairs. It’s all catered marquees full of bored socialites who don’t know one end of a polo pony from the other. Boring.

[skippydiesel]

Human nature is truly amazing - As sure as night follows day a public servant (of some description) will see a good thing and want to tax it (rip it off) to the hilt, often killing the goose in the process.

These days the modus operandi is to "license" a contracted/operator  (usually a mate of the aforementioned public servant) to have exclusive "rights" to something (camping in this instance) that includes preventing anyone else from,  having a bit of a kip under the wing of their aircraft.

Nature is wonderful in its predictability.

[APenNameAndThatA]

10 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

Human nature is truly amazing - As sure as night follows day a public servant (of some description) will see a good thing and want to tax it (rip it off) to the hilt, often killing the goose in the process.

These days the modus operandi is to "license" a contracted/operator  (usually a mate of the aforementioned public servant) to have exclusive "rights" to something (camping in this instance) that includes preventing anyone else from,  having a bit of a kip under the wing of their aircraft.

Nature is wonderful in its predictability.

Which Skippydiesel is this? 

[spacesailor]

It has come to light !.

A lot of ' caravan / holiday park owner,s / managers ' have become councilor,s, just to get laws past, that interfere with " free camping ", in chambers.

The " no camping within 10 Klms, of town " is one such law.

Which is wrong as people have to camp on the town ' showgrounds ' at town events.

spacesailor

[skippydiesel]

24 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

It has come to light !.

A lot of ' caravan / holiday park owner,s / managers ' have become councilor,s, just to get laws past, that interfere with " free camping ", in chambers.

The " no camping within 10 Klms, of town " is one such law.

Which is wrong as people have to camp on the town ' showgrounds ' at town events.

spacesailor

Was I right or was I right?????

 

I like the idea of free camping in chambers

[waraton]

Heard part of an interview on ABC Broken Hill today (missed old mates name) but he was promoting the races. He acknowledged significantly fewer small aircraft attending the event and town generally but the decline being more than made up for by bigger aircraft with more people and increased buses etc. The lack of small aircraft was of no consequence to the event and no question as to why the light aircraft were staying away. They couldn't give a flying ........ 

[walrus]

Waraton

3 hours ago, waraton said:

Heard part of an interview on ABC Broken Hill today (missed old mates name) but he was promoting the races. He acknowledged significantly fewer small aircraft attending the event and town generally but the decline being more than made up for by bigger aircraft with more people and increased buses etc. The lack of small aircraft was of no consequence to the event and no question as to why the light aircraft were staying away. They couldn't give a flying ........ 

I've seen this behaviour before in sports and major events. The Council is seduced into assuming that the big guys are always going to want to come and are prepared always to pay top dollar.  This is a commercially very dangerous fallacy that ALWAYS ends in tears within a few years for the simple reason that the big guys wont pay top dollar forever and they are often very fickle.

 

So would I prefer 100 customers each dropping $1000 into the town or three customers each dropping $50,000? I'll always take the former.

 

Cases in point? The ski clubs that have a bumper ski season, put  their prices up and fill their club with guests their expenses go up accordingly.

 

Following season, very little snow, alienated members dont turn up and neither do guests. Club goes into administration.

 

A regatta in Victoria that decided to go "up market"  after securing a major insurance company as sponsor. They paid appearance money to grand prix yachts to put on a show and alienated 300+ yachts and crews who had been supporting the regatta for forty years. Result? Alienated average little guys went elsewhere. Three years later Scandia went broke and was sold. No sponsorship. No corporate marquee.  Regatta virtually collapsed.

 

Birdsville is popular just this once because of Covid.

[Bosi72]

Several years ago we went on a Cruise from Sydney to Caledonia, plus 2 or 3 islands. 

 

On the way to one of the islands, the Captain announced change of plans. The authorities on scheduled island asked for more $, then the Captain decided to take 5000 tourists on another island which didn't charge extra $$.

We still had a good fun on"unplanned" island.

 

Unfortunately we don't have a Captain in our sport/hobby, however I believe some other council may see this as an opportunity?

 

 

 

 

[Paul W]

BIRDSVILLE RACES, DYING - NOT YET GONE.

 

I've flown to the Birdsville races five times since 1992; my last visit before this year was 2017.

Always a great event, lots of planes (I would estimate 150-200 every year that I've been), lots of overland travellers too, and a great party atmosphere.

 

We flew in again this year (April 2022) for the 2021 postponed event. 12 light aircraft on the ground at one time was the most I saw in the 3 days we were there.

The bloke in Brisbane CTR refused to cancel my sartime, instead read me the number for CENSAR twice, yeah thanks mate, I know that but I don't have HF and I'm not sure if BDV has Optus, turned out it does so all ok. Not a good start to my Birdsville experience though.

Then had to download an app to get avgas, not mentioned in ERSA. No credit card or cash facility at all as stated in ERSA. If there'd been the queues at the bowser that I've seen in previous years it would have been pure chaos.

The security bloke who drove the "follow me" car was clueless about any of this. Where's your ASIC? Don't walk across the apron. He was friendly enough though, and gave us a lift to the gate by the pub, so I shouldn't be too critical.

There's no information on the website about alternative camping arrangements for those who fly in so I emailed the organisers pre event and was told we had to camp on the commons - a 20 minute walk from the pub loaded with camping gear in 38° heat. No mention of the caravan park.

You can stay in the "rent-a-tent" area if you like your tent to be pitched within an inch of your neighbours, and you'll pay more than you would for a motel room anywhere else. Chair, sleeping bag, lantern, esky, all extras.

We asked where we could camp when we arrived at the pub - no-one knew. We spotted the caravan park on the way through town and went there, a 5 min walk from the pub, across the road from the servo.

The staff at the park were happy and helpful and the amenities are fantastic, $40 per night for an unpowered site which I have absolutely no problem with.

There were only 3000 people there this year in stark contrast with the usual ±10 000, easy to get a beer at the pub, no big queues for food. Not many food vendors; pizza, kebab or fish and chips/chicken beef. All were really good though.

The pub had a temporary fence around it which included the area between the pub and the airport. In previous years the area outside the pub where Brophy's tent and all the food vendors are has been made a licensed area

so you could walk from the pub with a beer. Not this year. The security guard was friendly about it and advised us that we couldn't walk out with an open can, but we could get a takeaway and open it after we'd walked past him. It is QLD.

Fred Brophy put on just one show each night due to low crowd turn-out, still a fun time there.

 

All in all, still a good weekend. The camaraderie amongst visitors is still there; we all came a long way to be here; us from Kalgoorlie WA.

The removal of the SEZ (Special event zone) thus "no camping" rule at the airport was disappointing; I feel it's taken the "iconic" out of the Birdsville races and that the council is just not interested in having us there anymore. They say it's about risk aversity. It's about money.

They made a loss of $30k in 2019 due to this - they lost a lot more this time with 100 less aircraft; the aviation community spoke loudly about this change with a virtually complete no-show.

Pilots urge council to scrap under-wing camping ban at Birdsville Races - ABC News

It may be a different story in September this year when the regular meeting is on as far as crowd numbers go, but I'm having difficulty finding the motivation to go again. 

I'm just thankful that I was fortunate enough to be there in the halcyon days of Birdsville when Australia was Australia, people were accountable for their own actions, and no-one was offended.

 

 

 

[KRviator]

@Paul WGreat write-up, and pretty much mirrors my commentary at PPRune. I would really like to go to Birdsville with the KRviatrix as a "one of those things you've gotta do" type events, but theres buckleys chance if I'm going to be stung $200 in landing fees, a carton of beer in parkin fees, and still have to hump our gear a mile or so to the riverside camping area and then have to pay to get in to the event itself or for other thigns there. 

I'd rather go to Raglan where they (almost) frown upon aviators who don't camp under their wing! And you're with a hundred or more other fliers who are actively welcomed to the event. I'm counting down the days till it's on again this year so Mini-Me (2) and I can take the RV up for our first time. We (tried) to get a deal on a lightweight tent at the Rosehill camping show yesterday (without success) so am going to resort to mail-order...I think I could squeeze our swags in the RV so that's the other option.

[Bennyboy320]

48 minutes ago, KRviator said:

We (tried) to get a deal on a lightweight tent

Give Kathmandu a try, we bought our lightweight 2 man tent ⛺️ from them, first camp out will be under the wing at Raglan.

[Flightrite]

That corny saying ‘in the good old days’ fits well with BDV these days! Went there numerous times in the 80’s, we were all so pissed with bodies lying everywhere that nobody remembers anything other than everything was free other than food and race entry!

like most things in Australia, stupidity from certain morons destroy the fun factor due pure greed. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Flightrite

[Blueadventures]

14 hours ago, Bennyboy320 said:

Give Kathmandu a try, we bought our lightweight 2 man tent ⛺️ from them, first camp out will be under the wing at Raglan.

Take a good -10 sleeping bag as it gets cold. (Queensland cold for Queenslanders, I know it’s colder down south)

[Paul W]

On 21/04/2022 at 6:03 PM, KRviator said:

@Paul WGreat write-up, and pretty much mirrors my commentary at PPRune. I would really like to go to Birdsville with the KRviatrix as a "one of those things you've gotta do" type events, but theres buckleys chance if I'm going to be stung $200 in landing fees, a carton of beer in parkin fees, and still have to hump our gear a mile or so to the riverside camping area and then have to pay to get in to the event itself or for other thigns there. 

I'd rather go to Raglan where they (almost) frown upon aviators who don't camp under their wing! And you're with a hundred or more other fliers who are actively welcomed to the event. I'm counting down the days till it's on again this year so Mini-Me (2) and I can take the RV up for our first time. We (tried) to get a deal on a lightweight tent at the Rosehill camping show yesterday (without success) so am going to resort to mail-order...I think I could squeeze our swags in the RV so that's the other option.

G'day mate,

Tell me more about Raglan please.

[Blueadventures]

Worth attending you won't be disappointed.

[KRviator]

8 minutes ago, Paul W said:

G'day mate,

Tell me more about Raglan please.

Raglam (aka "The Old Station Fly-in") is a must-do on any aviators calender.

I've not been, but have wanted to go for several years and with Covid cancelling it last year and the death of one of their founders the year before, IIRC, this is the first time in 3 or so years it's been back on. Basically it's a huge drive- and fly-in for anything that can fly, on-field camping or under wing camping is encouraged, licenced bar, organised entertainment at night, truck & vintage car displays, all in all a great weekend - and all you pay for entry is $25 per plane!

Their website. And for the more youthful members, their Facebook page.

The below image courtesy of the Old Station flying club gives a bit of an idea as to how many people and planes you can expect.

[Blueadventures]

On 25/04/2022 at 3:26 PM, Paul W said:

G'day mate,

Tell me more about Raglan please.

Hi Paul  This is a video I did a few years back will give you an idea of what it's like.  I did a coolant hose on way home had to outland and some guys from Old Station came and helped out with hose joiner and coolant.  I tried twice to put money in their tool bucket but they gave it back.  Great guys.  This year is the next one and I'll be phoning them to at least buy them some beers.  Its a great turn out and worth the journey to get there.  Hope the video helps your decision.  

 

[Paul W]

G'day KRviator and Blueadventures,

 

Thanks for your replies, looks like a lot of fun.

[planedriver]

On 26/04/2022 at 9:17 PM, Blueadventures said:

Hi Paul  This is a video I did a few years back will give you an idea of what it's like.  I did a coolant hose on way home had to outland and some guys from Old Station came and helped out with hose joiner and coolant.  I tried twice to put money in their tool bucket but they gave it back.  Great guys.  This year is the next one and I'll be phoning them to at least buy them some beers.  Its a great turn out and worth the journey to get there.  Hope the video helps your decision.  

 

Great video. Loved it! Thanks for posting it.