The Great Australian Outback

The Birdsville Hotel Pub is Australian's Wild West at its best. Several dozen personalized stubbie holders of regular patrons, a long rack of draft beer taps, sixteen-foot ceilings and a lone pool table. We toss back tinnies with the locals until the wee hour.

Eyre creek would be our turnaround point. Lined with a wealth of vegetation, hundreds of birds of a dozen species, Eyre was an excellent example of an oasis in the midst of a desert caldron. The only problem is that the water was about three-and-a-half feet deep: Well over the hoods of most of our rigs. In first position was the Toyota 79-series Land Cruiser pick-up, followed by the 100-Series Land Cruiser and the F-250. After the first three rigs were through, the ruts in the soft mud bottom were getting deep and we opted to head back to the base of Big Red to camp. The return crossing was not so smooth, burying the Ford in the mucky seat-deep swamp water (yes, the seats in the cab). Considering the rig was on loan from ARB owner Andy Brown, (his personal rig) this was a bummer. Back at Big Red, another moon would rise over Australia and another brilliant night was upon us. We were at the northern most point our Outback trek and would be heading south in the morning

These are not the places you'll visit if you follow the "suggested trips" of your travel guide. And you won't be bothered by busloads of backpackers or the Sun City senior crowd. This is real Australia, beyond the black stump, Back'o Bourke, the Never Never. (Aussie terms for the Outback) if you were on foot, the area would have a semblance to a great prison without walls, only the mind-numbing expanses of sun-baked desert. The Outback may be the place where Australians go when they want to get back to their survivalist roots. Join us next month as we explore the Birdsville track and follow the trail of the Great Australian Cattle Drive, then to the site of the fateful Page Family Grave, and into the Flinders Range for a homestay on one of the regions historic cattle stations.

Silverton has been the site of many movie sets including Mel Gibson's Mad Max. The car in front of the hotel, a modified GT351 1973 Ford XB Falcon Coupe, is a replica of the original.