The cry from the Outback: What Recession?!

Australian Traveller contributor Gail Liston is based in Alice Springs, and has been noticing that, far from a Global Financial Crisis going on out there, business is actually booming. But why?

In the office of Wayoutback Desert Safaris, the phones are buzzing. When asked why it’s so hectic, Lia Black throws her head back and laughs. “Busy? Someone forgot to tell us here in Alice Springs that there’s a recession going on!"

This appears to be the status quo in the Red Centre, where tourism is in no way feeling the global economic crisis squeeze, visitor numbers are up and, best of all, Aussies are flocking to the Outback to rediscover their heritage.

“We have haven’t felt the pinch of the recession at all," says Symon Conway, manager of Kings Creek Station, an Outback resort and campground facility near Kings Canyon about 300km from Alice Springs.

The message is the same no matter who you talk to: tourism is booming in Central Australia, thanks to the Aussies who are making this the year to see their country.

“Compared to last year, we’re probably twice as busy. We’ve had to put on more staff to cope with the pressure. We’ve got more travellers coming through, but the best thing is generally we’re seeing more Australians and less of the bus coaches with Europeans on board."

Taking the hint from the Tourism Australia and Tourism NT marketing campaigns aimed at getting us metrophiles to travel at home, more of us are jumping on planes, buses and trains – as well as getting behind the wheel to experience some of the wonders of central Australia. In 2009 you’re more likely to hear “G’day" rather than “bonjour" or “guten morgen" at Uluru, Trephina Gorge, Rainbow Valley or in the Todd Mall in Alice Springs.

“The marketing campaigns have been trying to get the Aussies to travel in Australia, so I think we’re seeing the results of that," says Warwick (Rocky) Rock, regional manager for Australian Pacific Touring (APT) in central Australia.

“The domestic market has definitely gone up because of these campaigns and there are terrific deals out there for Australian travellers, with operators such as ourselves running two-for-one deals. Why wouldn’t you travel in Australia this year when there are offers like this around?"

And Aussies are not likely to let a good deal go wanting, so it’s not at all surprising to find tour buses bursting at the seams with home-grown tourists seeking something a little different from their holiday experience.

“Used to be very rare that we got Australians on board," says Ben (Beno) Rogers, a driver guide with Adventure Tours, as he rounds up his 20-plus 20-something passengers who have been enjoying the winter sun in front of the café at Kings Creek Station. “But we’re seeing more and more this year. Everyone on this tour is Australian . . . very unusual."

Back at Wayoutback, company owner Don Wait is enthusiastic about the state of tourism in the centre. “Wayoutback is having its best year on record," he says. “It’s full on. It’s fantastic. It appears at this stage the economic crisis hasn’t hit us. I mean, it certainly hasn’t hit us here in Central Australia.

“I was at a tourism conference recently and someone said to me: ‘Everyone’s got beaches and Australia’s beaches are good, but you can good beaches all around the world. What you can’t get is what you’ve got here in the Territory.’

“It’s unique," he says, “and that awareness is out there about what we have here in the Territory and people here in Australia are starting to realise it. Finally."

Kathy and Brett Graham would agree with this. This pair of seasoned tourism industry professionals decided in June to open their own tourist operation, something some may think a little foolhardy in the current economic climate. They started by purchasing a block of holiday units called Hillsview Apartments in Alice Springs and in August launched SEIT Outback Australia, a touring company specialising in small groups and charters throughout the Red Centre.

“Since we took over the apartments we’ve had hardly any vacancies," says Kathy Graham. “We don’t see that there’s an economic downturn here at all. In fact, tourist numbers are up and we have strong bookings from the domestic market, and for a new business that’s really good news."

Husband Brett says more and more Australians are travelling in their own backyard. He’s not at all concerned about dipping his business toe into the often-fickle world of tourism. “I’ve said right from the start that you have to decide whether you’re going to take the recession on board or press on with life. We decided to ignore the recession, seize the opportunity and move forward – and it’s working ‘cause our bookings are strong."

According to Maree Tetlow, chief executive of Tourism NT, more Australians are visiting the Red Centre this year than in the previous two years.

“The Red Centre is effectively the heart of Australia and this unique travelling experience offers visitors the opportunity to embark on a journey of self-discovery and wellbeing – to refresh the mind, rejuvenate the spirit and get centred," she says.

“This destination is so different. For many, the experience of coming here is akin to an international holiday. Now with more people opting to stay closer to home during their holidays, many more Australians are moving their desire to visit the Red Centre from their holiday wish-list to a holiday booking."

The message is the same no matter who you talk to: tourism is booming in Central Australia, thanks to the Aussies who are making this the year to see their country.

Tourism NT – www.tourismnt.gov.au

Wayoutback Desert Safaris – www.wayoutback.com.au

Kings Creek Station – www.kingscreekstation.com.au

Australian Pacific Touring – www.aptouring.com.au

SEIT Outback Australia – www.seitoutbackaustralia.com.au

Adventure Tours – www.adventuretours.com.au

Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors . Visit Wama , Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium .

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate . Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock , can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe . Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines , Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines .

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

The cry from the Outback: What Recession?!

Australian Traveller contributor Gail Liston is based in Alice Springs, and has been noticing that, far from a Global Financial Crisis going on out there, business is actually booming. But why?

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