Living in the Outback: A Look at Rural Australia

I have been to the outback, but only for a holiday. I flew out to Alice Springs, spent a few days there, and then drove the 400 or so kilometres to Uluru before flying back from there direct into Brisbane.

It was great fun and we saw some awesome sights…

central australia Wild Camels in Central Australia Red Central Australian Sky

Standley Chasm… but within seven days it was all over.

I enjoyed my holiday, but it hardly gave me any real insight into what it’s really like to live in the outback.

Cordillo Downs

How would you like to live in a place where it is 2 and a half hours drive to the nearest shops? And when you get to those shops, pretty much all you can buy is food supplies and beer, no clothes at all. If you wanted to buy the new iPhone 6, for example, you’d certainly need to jump back in your car or truck and drive a lot further.

Of course, when you get your shiny new iPhone back home, good luck getting a signal. But you could use the calculator I suppose, or maybe take some pictures.

The place I am describing in this particular instance is called Cordillo Downs and it’s in the middle of nowhere, or Woop Woop as Australians like to call it. More specifically for those of you who are graphically curious, it’s on a track between Birdsville and Innamincka.

But we have a lot of ‘Woop Woops’ in Australia.

This is a fantastic documentary which follows the lives of a couple of Irish backpackers earning their corn on a remote farm in the north-east corner of outback South Australia. I really enjoyed this movie, so much so that I’d really like to watch it again.

Hey, come on, let’s watch it together…

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{ 9 comments… add one }
  • Isolation and Australia? September 23, 2014, 12:15 pm |

    Isolation and Australia. By the way what impact has this had on Australia, especially on remote communities and indigenous Australians? Like bordem, emergencies eg. brushfires etc

    • BobinOz September 23, 2014, 7:00 pm |

      Living in a city, I’m not qualified to answer this question. Hopefully somebody else might have a view, anybody?

    • Rebsmit September 23, 2014, 11:47 pm |

      Well for an emergency like I hurt myself the flying doctors would fly out to help me and something like a fire we’d just have to handle it until someone would come from another town, such as a community conflict it takes cops about 4 hours to drive out. And for boredom, the company that I work for gave me satellite internet and foxtel so tv, but I work most of the time and sleep so not much boredom

  • Rebsmit September 18, 2014, 3:17 am |

    The outback is great you need to visit more, I live 4 hours out of Alice in a little aboriginal community called Mt Liebig (originally from SA). No cell reception what so ever, only satellite internet, nothing but houses and an IGA and about 200 dogs in the town. Visit here and you’ll get true outback!!!

    • BobinOz September 18, 2014, 5:19 pm |

      Just explaining for my other readers Rebsmit that an IGA is a supermarket. So that’s it? Nothing but one supermarket? That truly is the outback. If you get the chance to tell us more about what it’s really like to live there, I’d love to hear more from you.

      Cheers, Bob

      • Rebsmit September 18, 2014, 8:51 pm |

        It’s probably the most remote place I’ve been, it’s me and only 3 other white people out of the 200 in the aboriginal community, most of it is housing except my little shop in the centre of the town, an outback store that sells a bit of everything for the community, if you want anything else besides kangaroo tail for dinner it’s a 4 hour dive back to Alice on a one lane road, so you have to drive off the road for oncoming traffic like road trains or camels, it would be a great place to visit but there’s no hotel besides my spare bedroom so we don’t get visitors, pretty much surrounded by cliffs and red dirt, I didn’t think much of our Australia living in South Aus So it’s really eye opening to how beautiful Australia is out here

        • BobinOz September 22, 2014, 6:19 pm |

          Are you saying that you have upped sticks and moved out of South Australia, bought a shop in Mt Liebig, actually the only shop in Mt Liebig and you’ve set up business providing supplies for the local community there?

          That is probably just about the most life changing plan I’ve ever come across, fascinating. Sounds like you’re having fun too, which is brilliant. I’d love to pop over there some time and buy one of your kangaroos tails. Shouldn’t take me longer than around 50 to 60 hours round-trip 🙂

          Cheers, Bob

  • Big sis September 14, 2014, 6:58 am |

    Brings back good memories ! That sky was amazing !

    • BobinOz September 15, 2014, 6:57 pm |

      Yes, it was beautiful. Sounds like you need to save up for another visit 🙂

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