Explore the heart of Australia
A pub crawl by plane is a great way to experience the culture of the Australian Outback
It is clear that we stick out like a sore thumb at the Emmdale Roadhouse. "So what are you fellas doing here?" asks the barman. Emmdale is an isolated stop in the vast undulating plain of pink and burnt orange at the heart of Australia.
"We're doing a pub crawl," I tell him. He raises an eyebrow in a manner at once sceptical and disapproving. Outback pubs can be hundreds of kilometres apart, and I've only ordered a coffee. We've just arrived from Melbourne, 1,000km away. But instead of 11 hours of driving, much of it on dusty unsurfaced tracks, we stretch our legs in the comfort of a sturdy little Beechcraft Baron, now parked on a dirt strip just across the road, and hop up in a third of the time. Our designated driver is pilot Dave Woodland from Lilydale Air Services, also on soft drinks until the end of the day, ready to take us wherever we like.
The intention is to get a panoramic view of the Outback in all its vast variety and not merely through the distorting lens of a beer glass. We leave lush landscape hatched with vines to fly over territory of arid beauty sometimes stippled with the green of feathery gum trees, scored by the writhing lines of watercourses waiting for rare rainfall, and offering only the occasional wink of a waterhole.
And we head for still more remote places where any request for a latte might be thought lah-di-dah, although we can quite easily choose to land at luxury lodges such as Arkaba Station's five-room colonial homestead.
It is said that 95 per cent of Australians live in the coastal areas, but the "red centre" has a rough and ready culture of its own. Much of that is found in remote pubs which are often battered bungalows with corrugated roofs, but sometimes dignified century-old buildings in solid limestone, with comfortable rooms and impressive menus. Travelling by plane allows you the luxury of hopping between remote and more colourful locations in the daytime, but returning to creature comforts in the evening.
Some pubs are popular with riotous backpacker bus tours that take few surfaced routes crossing the emptiness. But other pubs sit at the centre of cattle stations the size of small European countries whose stockmen travel as much as 100 km to what it seems inappropriate to call their "local". There's a less rowdy atmosphere, oddly enough, and instead of the baseball caps and abandoned underwear sometimes pinned up in the tourist pubs, the battered rabbit-felt hats of regulars hang from the ceiling.
The century-old pub at Tilpa is deserted and the neighbouring cemetery emptier still with not a single gravestone. But the pub's battered interior - walls, ceiling and furniture - is covered with the signatures of passers-by who have earned permission to scribble by making a contribution to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Other surprises include one of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves in a glass case, and the ability to fish directly from the rear verandah into the gelatinous Darling River.
We hop to Bourke to refuel beyond which we will be officially remote even when judged by Australian standards are concerned. "Back of Bourke" is Australian for "back of beyond".