The Wilderness Ranch
Wherever you are in the world, ranch life starts promptly at daybreak and El Questro, in the remote north of Western Australia, is no exception. Deleana had our horses ready saddled. ‘Call me Del,’ she said brightly, issuing helmets and allocating mounts to a group of nervous riders. As we walked away from the stables, she chatted about bush tucker – anything from wallaby meat to witchetty grubs – and the medicinal properties of indigenous plants.
The exceptionally well-informed Del runs the riding on the El Questro ranch, or station as they’re called here, 70 miles outside the town of Kununurra on the eastern edge of the rugged Kimberley region. After a two-hour morning flight from Darwin, we drove out to the million-acre property along the graded Gibb River Road against a background of harsh peaks and stunning red rockscapes. As the temperature rose to 42°C, the blazing sun leached the colour out of the arid landscape. When we reached El Questro land, we spotted shorthorn and Brahman cattle picking at yellow tufted grass between 1,000-year-old boab trees, distantly related to Madagascar’s famous baobabs. As the terrain got wilder, we bumped through dry riverbeds, which turn into raging torrents in the wet season, cutting the station off from the world for four months.
Given terrain that only supports one steer per 100 acres, El Questro was never going to be prime cattle country. Established as a working ranch in the 1960s, in 1991 it was sold to 23-year-old Will Burrell (the British heir to the Penguin Books fortune) for A$1,000,000 (£461,325). He reduced the number of cattle to 6,000 and developed the property as a remote holiday destination.
Although mustering cattle is not on the agenda, El Questro provides more than a glimpse into outback life. The full extent of its Aboriginal heritage hasn’t been explored, but the existing rock paintings and sacred sites promise further cultural treasures down the line. Riding and fishing top the action but for stressed-out city dwellers, the real allure is El Questro’s extreme isolation. In a shrinking world, it’s a privilege to roam freely on a property that covers a greater area than San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Seattle and Denver combined, with just a scattering of human beings in sight.
Visitors to El Questro stay in one of three places, the Station Township, Emma Gorge or the Homestead. Unless you can afford the Homestead’s luxury price tag, the Township is the best bet, with air-conditioned bungalows and stand-up tents with beds for hire, plus a camping ground on the riverbank. Most expeditions, including Del’s morning rides, start here, making it the most convenient choice. It is also the liveliest, with nightly music and the occasional stand-up routine in the Swinging Arm Bar.
After a two-hour drive, we began our three-day visit with barramundi and chips washed down with very welcome ice-cold beer in the Township’s Steakhouse restaurant. Then it was time to move on to Emma Gorge, the most basic of El Questro’s sleepovers although it still has a swimming pool, an outdoor bar and a restaurant serving good reasonably priced food. After dinner under the stars, we settled into our tent-cabins and dreamt of air conditioning until 5am when a chopper whisked us to the banks of the Chamberlain River for our heli-fishing expedition.
