If you’ve seen Australia, the movie, you will know what the appeal of the Top End’s tropical landscape it.

Buffalo, Northern Territory

Of course the Northern Territory has beautiful National Parks: but they don’t cater for 5-star luxury, more the camping and family holiday scene. Now taking note from the luxury African safari model comes to the Northern Territory in the form of Bamurru Plains located on the edge of Kakadu National Park, and only 3 hours drive from Darwin.

Bird Life, Bamurra Camp

The brainchild of adventure tourism entrepreneur Charles Carlow, who also runs the just-opened Sal Salis at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, Bamurru Plains was launched in early 2007. It has been a resounding success making it on to the hotlists of influential US and British travel magazines and providing what could well be Australia’s first African-style safari option. The brags in the visitors book point to adventure aplenty: “We saw a jabiru at sunset with snake in its mouth and dingoes rounding up wallabies”

Bamurru Plains is a safari camp on Swim Creek Station, a privately owned pastoral lease on the flood plains of the Mary River delta east of Darwin. The property runs 10,00 head of buffalo and 1500 brahmin cattle. At only 303sqkm its tiny by Australian standards but the area is a paradise for the visitor looking for the unusual and beautiful.

Fine Dining meets Camping

Camping Glamour Style

Bamurru offers the “glamping” experience as glamour camping is getting know as. There are no tents to put up and not a sleeping bag to be seen. Instead the ensuite fixed tents include lemmongrass-scented ssoads, feather-filled pillows and a powerful shower (hot and cold available) attached to a tree trunk in the tin-and-timber bathroom annex. The lack of noisy generators and the large, mesh covered windows means that you will probably wake early to the sounds of the blue-winged Kookaburras, or the sound of a buffalo splashing around in the floodplains not far from your bed.

With no telephones, TVs, CD players or the typical features of a hotel room to distract you, your focus turns to the surrounding environment. Only 3 of the 9 rooms have air-conditioning and you will have to book it and pay extra too. Meals are family style in the central dining room and menus feature local produce including buffalo and baramundi. So basically camping with a comfortable bed, a hot shower, a guide and cook thrown in - I could get used to that!

Some movies are good for country’s tourism industry and we predict that Baz Luhrmann’s new movie, Australia should do wonders for Australia’s Top End tourism industry.

Nicole Kidman in Australia

The Australia’s Tropical Far North is a truely amazing wilderness but off the radar for most luxury destination tourists. We think Luhrmann’s Australia may just change that.

Australia movie is set around a fictional cattle station, which Nicole Kidman’s character has inherited. Aristocratic Nicole Kidman descends on rough colonial Australia and of course falls for the local bad boy (Hugh Jackman). The action includes the 1942 Japanese air raids on Darwin as well as massive cattle drive across the Northern Territory of Australia. Although the advance publicity includes some eye-catching pics of the stars getting hot and steamy, the real star of the show will no doubt be the beautiful Australian landscape.

Filmed on location the cast spent months in remote northern Australia at locations that included the little northern Queensland town of Bowen, standing in for 1940’s Darwin and the majestic Kimberley region.

Far Northern Queensland and Northern Territory

Normanton, Gulf Country, Northern Queensland

The dilemna of course, for the luxury traveller, is how to see all this beauty without having to actually rough it? Typically you have had to have been prepared to rough it a bit even if you take to the air to cover the vast distances involved. Traditional luxury lodgings include items such as pools, air-conditioning and gourmet food. This involves an infra-structure that just not exist in most of outback Australia. Sure you can often get air-conditioning - its practically a necessity with the temperatures - but the noisy diesel generator is not pleasent to be around, or good for the environment.

There are some solutions: the magnificent Kimberley coast can only reached by cruise ship, and the addition of a helicopter will get the visitor to areas which would take literally weeks of hard travel overland. We reviewed luxury cruising in the Kimberleys previously but obviously it restricts you to the coast: beautiful though that it is.

A number of working properties now offer luxury “ranch” stays, such as Wrotham Park These stations are large enough to be self-contained anyway so the addition of a handful of larger guest rooms isn’t so much of a problem. These luxury station stays tend to be an after thought: the cattle came first, the tourists are a second string of income so the locations are not always picked for their exotic locale. Cattle country is basically dry country - the cattle can’t survive tropical wetlands. However tropical wetlands attract amazing wildlife, particularly birds and also, of course tourists.
Kimberleys and Broome

Boab Tree, near Derby, Kimberleys

A new development in Australia’s Top End Tourism is of eco-resorts which try to adopt an environmentally light foot-print to their usually purpose built cabins or safari tents generally in extremely remote areas. The key is to get the electricity right: diesel generators are noisy and not environmentally sensitive, not to mention expensive to run. Solar power is fantastic but will not run air-conditioning, though good for hot water and lighting.

Here’s a preview of what we are looking forward to see in Australia Movie:

Photo Credits: Emigrating to Australia

True luxury comes to the Australian outback. Great Southern Railways launches “the Southern Spirit – luxury rail cruises”

The Great Southern Rail is launching its new Platinum level Service on The Ghan rail service. The Ghan has connected Adelaide with Darwin for a number of years but the new Platinum service really takes this train journey into a level of luxury of some of the great train journeys of the world. The twice weekly trip takes two nights to cover the 2979km in either direction with ½ day stop-overs in Alice Spring and Katharine on the way. The new Platinum cabins are twice the size of Gold class cabins and include full ensuite facilities, a plush lounge by day and a double or two twin beds by night. Platinum class includes 24 hour room service but you also have the choice of dining in the elegantly themed Queen Adelaide Restaurant Carriage or relaxing in the outback Explorer lounge.

This trip from south to north is the last word in luxury for a train line that took over 100 years to develop. The original Ghan replaced the Afghan camel drivers who helped open up the outback. The first 40 kilometres of track was laid in 1879 between Port Augusta and Quorn. It took another 50 years following the line of artesian springs through Maree, Oodnadatta until the line reached Alice Springs: roughly ½ way. The line was notoriously difficult to maintain and the old Ghan train, definitely not a 5 star luxury experience, was often days late into either Alice Springs or Adelaide. The old line had to follow the line of artesian water bores as the steam trains needed frequent water stops. Finally in 1980 the current line was opened re-aligning the train to Alice Springs via Tarcoola, several hundred kilometres to the east. Remnants of the old line remain are a popular trip for 4WD enthusiasts. The line was only extended to Darwin in 2003! Photo credit: vacation tips

November 2008 sees the launch of Luxury Australian Rail Cruises, with a 13 day cruise across the heart of Australia from the Darwin, through the tropical tropical Top End, the Red Centre, the scenic south, Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra to Sydney. This marathon trip takes 13 days and is priced at A$13,290 per person twin share in Platinum class (the cheaper gold class is also available). Prices include “port excursions”in Katharine, Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra. What a way to experience without any of the inconvenience of the dust and flys: well except of course when you leave the “ship”!