The surprising thing about Australia’s famous outback homestead stay

Station manager Joe Atkins says I’m eating like his stockmen do, but I doubt any of them sit under boab trees lit up by string lights sipping premium wine out of glasses hand-made in Austria. Bullo River Station promises an immersive connection to the outback on a 162,000-hectare property in the remote East Kimberley, but when my six-seater charter plane lands on a grass airstrip out front, staff won’t let me carry even my backpack to my room. If only I knew 30 years ago this is what it’s like being a jackaroo in the Northern Territory, I might’ve learnt to ride a horse.

A three-hour drive will just get you to tthe station’s boundaries from Darwin or Kununurra.Credit: Elise Hassey

I could’ve driven out here from Darwin (or Kununurra), but to understand the remoteness of this place, it’s worth noting it takes three hours of driving just to get to the boundary of the property. Bullo River Station is one of outback Australia’s most iconic outback homesteads, thanks to former owner, Sara Henderson, whose 1993 autobiography listing the trials of a widow running a remote cattle station with three small daughters made her a household name.

On arrival, I’m taken by ATV for a quick tour of the homestead and watch wallabies boxing on a green lawn, beside jackaroos – and jillaroos – rounding up cattle on horseback; all this just metres from a sanctuary of luxurious suites set around a swimming pool shaded by coconut trees.

With all the creature comforts it’s tough remembering this is a working cattle station.

Pastoralism, outback Australia and the tropics seem to converge right here on this spot, and as I take a seat on a wrap-around verandah outside my room, staring into the vastness of the Kimberley landscape, I’m not quite sure which bit hits me hardest.

Bullo River Station is a five-star luxury property offering a five-star luxury experience, but Atkins is adamant its appeal has nothing to do with the trimmings. At dusk, we take an ATV to a clearing in the wilderness beneath an enormous boab tree, set above the slow-moving Bullo River. Dinner is a casserole of beef offcuts with mashed potato, served at a communal table. David Rayner is a nationally renowned chef, but his three-course feast is nullified by the shooting lights of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, magnified in the clear outback night sky. Later, we sit around a fire-pit with warming drinks telling stories, as stockmen do.

There’s much to do at Bullo River Station. During the day, I ride an electric-powered boat down the Bullo River Gorge, surrounded by the towering red sandstone cliffs the Kimberley is famous for. The gorge is home to one of the world’s two known populations of pygmy crocodile – but it’s the larger estuarine variety that thrills me most – even if they keep me from jumping in. I cool down instead in the spring-fed waterholes the crocs can’t reach. There’s ancient rock art all over the property, hidden deep in rugged red cliffs and beneath sheer ridgelines: lasting remnants of the Miriwoong and Gajirrawoong people who lived here for tens of thousands of years. Most of them can only be accessed by helicopter – the ones they use for mustering are also used by the station for tours.

The pool at the station looks more Port Douglas than outback NT.

Australia’s outback cattle stations have had a checkered history with Indigenous culture – and the environment – but Bullo River Station is part of a new wave focused on fixing the wrong. Indigenous cattle hands work the property and the station signed a collaboration with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy – the first of its kind in Australia – to rehabilitate land damaged by 64 years of grazing, returning areas to native bush, discovering species never seen before in the Northern Territory. “Conservationists and pastoralists didn’t use to mix,” Atkins says. But these pastoralists run the second largest off-grid solar station in the Northern Territory – by year’s end, the whole property will run off the sun.

It doesn’t stop shining round these parts – it won’t rain a drop from March to November. But it sets each day across the Bullo River in a blaze of pink and orange. I’m there for it each day, watching the show with an appropriate drink. In four days, no stockman joins me. It makes me wonder: is this really how NT stockmen live?

The details

Fly
Qantas (qantas.com/au) and Virgin Australia (virginaustralia.com/au) fly regularly to Darwin from Australia’s east coast. Charter flights (90 minutes) connect from Darwin to Bullo River Station.

Stay
Bullo River Station provides an all-inclusive stay, including most experiences (helicopter tours are extra), rooms are $1450 a night, two-night minimum. See bulloriver.com.au

The writer travelled courtesy of Bullo River Station and NT Tourism. See northernterritory.com