El Questro homestead named one of the world’s top 100 hotels
Clifftop villas and luxury glamping have seen wilderness park El Questro, once known for its wild parties among upper-crust Melbourne society, named as one of the world’s top 100 hotels.
Once known for its wild parties among upper-crust Melbourne society, the vast El Questro deep in the Kimberley has a bright future now its relationship with its traditional owners has been repaired and there are luxe new expansion plans on offer.
El Questro’s newish owner, Grant Wilckens — a former investment banker and now the co-founder and head of the $1.5bn G’Day Group, Australia’s largest regional accommodation owner — freely admits it was El Questro’s founder, British aristo Will Burrell, who had the foresight more than 30 years ago to develop the vast holding from a fledgling cattle station into a thriving tourism hub.
Under the Burrells, Tatler magazine named the El Questro homestead one of the world’s top 100 hotels.
“Burrell had the vision, I can’t take the credit. I want to carry on his vision and I want to open this up to more Australians and mend and enhance relationships with traditional owners,” Wilckens says.
“It is hard doing business out here — it’s lovely, it’s romantic but the practicality of running tourism out here is not for the faint-hearted … for Will Burrell it would have been hard all those years ago.”
Burrell and then-partner Celia paid $1 per acre for the one million acre El Questro station 110km from Kununurra in 1991, and over the next 14 years created an unprecedented accommodation facility for campers and five-star luxury guests.
But, since its sale by the Burrells in 2005 there was little further capital expenditure and effort to make good with the traditional owners until G’Day Group brought El Questro back into Australian hands, buying it during the height of covid in mid-2021 for $14m.
G’Day Group then set about returning around half the site to the local Wilinggin Aboriginal Corporation, which has since granted the G’Day Group a 99-year commercial lease to operate it as a tourism enterprise.
Will Burrell said: “I have been back a couple of times, I have a feeling of great satisfaction that the project works. I am deeply proud of it. (But) the middle five years I describe as hell. My mental health was tested, I was terrified. I remember thinking, ‘what the f--k have I done?’ But, then you come out the other end and you are euphoric. When you see 500 happy people in your establishment, there’s nothing better.
Educated at Eton with former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and David Cameron, Burrell recalls how he once had to learn Greek. “A fat lot of good it did throwing cows,” he says, given El Questro once carried thousands of cattle. These days he is Australia’s largest owner of Red Angus cattle, with several holdings in central Victoria.
But, even for the can-do Wilckens, running El Questro is not easy. For instance, the Kimberley’s wet season necessitates the station is shut from November to April each year.
At other times, swollen rivers can cut El Questro off from the outside world, meaning trucks laden with fresh food and supplies are unable to reach the estate.
However, these headwinds are not stopping his plans for a major overhaul, which includes renovating the main pool, upgrading the vast central lounge and adding five new clifftop villas with views across the Chamberlain River — possibly with plunge pools —, moves which will increase accommodation by 50 per cent.
Wilckens is also talking about new overnight glamping experiences — dropping off guests by chopper and letting them cook their own meals.
“There’s incredible ridges and clifftops, there’s a couple of sites that could have glamping tents,” he says.
As for the pesky wet season, Wilckens has a vision, given choppers are used like taxis in the Top End.
“We would like to have a wet season tourism product, such as a visit to the wilderness park by chopper,” he says.
The writer was a guest of El Questro.
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