Four legendary outback pubs, one ancient salt lake full of water, and now someone’s built a pub crawl around it.
Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre is alive with floodwaters, transforming Australia’s largest salt lake into one of the country’s rarest natural spectacles. Now it’s the backdrop for the most extraordinary pub crawl the outback has ever seen.
Most Australians have never seen Kati Thanda from the air. Most have never ordered a beer at William Creek Hotel, where every hat on the wall belongs to someone who understood they’d stumbled onto something genuinely rare.
Prairie Hotel in Parachilna has built what they’re calling the Outback Pub Pilgrimage: a 1.5-day, fly-in journey stitching together four of Australia’s most mythologised remote watering holes, across landscapes most Australians will never otherwise see.
The Outback Pub Pilgrimage begins at the Prairie Hotel. (Credit: South Australian Tourism Commission)
The timing is no accident. Right now, Kati Thanda – Australia’s largest salt lake, usually a shimmering white void – is flooded. It fills rarely, unpredictably, and only briefly. From the air, it’s a sight that defies the outback’s reputation for brown and sparse: an inland sea, gleaming and improbable, stretching to a horizon you can’t quite believe.
The Outback Pub Pilgrimage is hosted by an expert pilot who doubles as a guide. Guests arrive and stay at Prairie Hotel the evening before departure with dinner built on native ingredients, wines from South Australia’s best small producers, and a cold beer from the Parachilna Brew Project, SA’s most remote brewery. Then, the next morning, 500 metres to the private airstrip.
Have morning tea at William Creek Hotel. (Credit: South Australian Tourism Commission)
The route is four stops, each one a chapter in the story of the Australian outback. The plane sweeps low over Kati Thanda before touching down at William Creek Hotel for morning tea – a pub dating to 1935, originally a siding on the old Ghan railway line, sitting in the middle of Anna Creek Station, the largest cattle station on earth at 32,500 square kilometres.
From there, head deep into Queensland’s Channel Country and the Birdsville Hotel, with a sunset drive out to Big Red, the great rust-coloured dune on the edge of the Simpson Desert, and an overnight at the pub. The next day will take you to Cooper Creek and the Innamincka Hotel, where Burke and Wills made their last camp, and where lunch feels like a moment to sit with the weight of the country. Then back to Parachilna, fires lit, cold beer on.
The floodwaters that have filled Kati Thanda have also limited traditional overland access to Birdsville. The Pilgrimage turns that challenge into an opportunity. What used to require a rugged 4WD odyssey now unfolds from the window of a Cessna 210, above country that few people have ever flown over.
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See the unique landscape from a bird’s-eye view. (Credit: South Australian Tourism Commission)
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Emily Murphy is Australian Traveller's Email & Social Editor, and in her time at the company she has been instrumental in shaping its social media and email presence, and crafting compelling narratives that inspire others to explore Australia's vast landscapes. Her previous role was a journalist at Prime Creative Media and before that she was freelancing in publishing, content creation and digital marketing. When she's not creating scroll-stopping travel content, Em is a devoted 'bun mum' and enjoys spending her spare time by the sea, reading, binge-watching a good TV show and exploring Sydney's vibrant dining scene. Next on her Aussie travel wish list? Tasmania and The Kimberley.
The country’s rawest places offer some of its most transformative, restorative experiences.
Australia offers sublime opportunities to disappear into the ancient, untouched wilderness, worlds away from modern stress. Wild Bush Luxury offers a collection of experiences that are a portal into the continent’s wildest, most undiscovered landscapes, from wide floodplains to vast savannas, where the only distractions are birdsong, frog calls, curious wallabies and the daily drama of sunset. With a focus on conservation and Indigenous knowledge, these all-inclusive experiences allow guests to slow down and quiet their minds for intimate encounters with the natural world.
1. Bamurru Plains
Let nature take front row.
In the remote Top End, just outside Kakadu National Park on the fringes of the spectacular Mary River floodplains, you’ll find Bamurru Plains, a peerless Australian safari camp. After a quick air transfer from Darwin to the camp’s private airstrip, you’ll be whisked away via 4WD to a vivid natural wonderland of shimmering floodplains, red earth, herds of peacefully grazing water buffalo and 236 bird species (Bamurru means magpie goose to the Gagadju people).
Accommodations consist of 10 mesh-walled bungalows and two luxe stilted retreats where guests enjoy panoramic, up-close views that invite them into their rightful place in the landscape (and binoculars to see it even better). Being an off-grid experience designed to help guests disconnect, the only distractions are birdsongs, frog calls, curious wallabies, the occasional crocodile sighting and the daily drama of the spectacular golden sunset.
It’s a place where nature’s vastness rises to the level of the spiritual, and Bamurru’s understated, stylish, largely solar-powered lodgings are designed to minimise human impact and let nature take front row. Guests relax in comfort with plush linens, an open bar, communal tables that allow for spontaneous connections and curated dining experiences from the in-house chef using local ingredients and bush-inspired cooking methods.
Zoom across the floodplains. (Image: Adam Gibson)
It’s a restorative backdrop for days spent zooming across the mist-covered floodplains in an airboat, birding with expert guides, taking an open-sided safari drive or river cruise through croc country. Spend time at the Hide, a treehouse-like platform that’s perfect for wildlife spotting.
In fact, nature is so powerful here that Bamurru Plains closes entirely during the peak monsoon season (October to April), when the floodplains reclaim the land and life teems unseen beneath the water. Yet Wild Bush Luxury’s ethos continues year-round through its other experiences around Australia – each designed to immerse travellers in a distinct Australian wilderness at its most alive and untouched.
2. Maria Island Walk
Maria Island Walk offers sweeping coastal scenes.
Off Tasmania’s rugged east coast, the iconic Maria Island Walk is an intimate four-day journey through one of the country’s most hauntingly beautiful and unpopulated national parks, encompassing pristine beaches, convict-era ruins, and wildlife sightings galore. Accessible only by a small ferry, Maria Island feels like a place reclaimed by nature, which is exactly what it is: a penal settlement later used for farms and industry that finally became a national park in 1972.
These days, the island is known as ‘Tasmania’s Noah’s Ark’ and its only human inhabitants are park rangers. It’s a place where wombats amble through grassy meadows, wallabies graze beside empty beaches, dolphins splash in clear water just offshore and Tasmanian devils – successfully reintroduced in 2012 after near-extinction on the mainland – roam free and healthy.
Each day unfolds in an unhurried rhythm: trails through coastal eucalyptus forests or along white-sand bays, plateaus with sweeping ocean views, quiet coves perfect for swimming. Midway through the journey, you’ll explore Darlington, a remarkably preserved 19th-century convict settlement whose ruins tell stories of human ambition at the edge of the known world.
At night, sleep beneath a canopy of stars in eco-wilderness camps – after relaxing with Tasmanian wine and locally-sourced meals, and swapping stories with your fellow trekkers by candlelight.
3. Arkaba
Explore Arkaba on foot or on four wheels.
For a bush immersion with more of an outback flavour, Arkaba offers a completely different type of experience. A former sheep station and historic homestead in South Australia’s striking Flinders Ranges that has been reimagined as a 63,000-acre private wildlife conservancy. It’s now patrolled mainly by kangaroos and emus.
Small-scale tourism (the homestead has just five ensuite guestrooms) helps support rewilding projects, and guests become an essential part of the conservation journey. Days begin with sunrise hikes through ancient sandstone ridges or guided drives into the ranges to spot yellow-footed rock-wallabies. And end with sundowners on a private ridgetop watching the Elder Range glow vibrant shades of gold, crimson and violet as the air cools and time stands still.
Here, you can join conservation activities like tracking native species or learning about Arkaba’s pioneering feral-animal eradication projects, then unwind with chef-prepared dinners served alfresco on the veranda of the homestead, which is both rustic and refined. The highlight? Following Arkaba Walk, a thriving outback wilderness where emus wander and fields of wildflowers grow.
It’s an unforgettable immersion in Australia’s vast inland beauty, a place where the land’s deep and complicated history – and astounding resilience – leave their quiet imprint long after you return home. In a world where genuine awe is rare, Wild Bush Luxury offers a return to what matters most in the untamed beauty of Australia’s wilderness.
