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