A Place in the Country

For a diversity of wilderness experiences - deserts, coastlines and seascapes, mountains and ancient landscapes - South Australia is certainly blessed with an abundance of attractions for visitors and locals alike.

The green state-capital Adelaide, the nearby Kangaroo Island, and the inland Flinders Ranges are arguably the three best known of these attractions in this Texas-sized state. But there are many lesser-known, and therefore less 'busy' places to discover that are equally spectacular.

And for me, once I get my fill of the coastline, I always like to turn inland into the timeless heart of the state where civilisation soon bows out and gives way to nature. The land becomes more sun-burnt and dusty and the towns smaller and quainter. Here, you are already flirting with the red deserts of the true Outback but are still in a fertile, but dry, land, speckled by vineyards, wheat farms and sheep ranches, called 'stations'.

But just two hours north of Adelaide, the landscape withers away to reveal an endless pale-green prairie, a sure sign that you are well on your way to the desiccated heart of the continent.

This is sheep country. A tough land punctuated by the occasional stone farmstead, which looks as rugged and practical as the people that work this land. (In springtime, however, you'll find yourself driving through endless undulating fields, rich with yellow, red and blue wildflowers).

And through this land runs the mighty Murray River - Australia's largest and longest - bringing life to this barren grandeur, just like the Nile irrigates the Sahara, one might say. A hundred years ago, sheep farmers shared this land with aborigines and goldminers. But today, the real gold is in small-scale tourism.

Portee Station stands on the banks of the great Murray River, a mile or two downstream from the farming hamlet of Blanchetown. As you turn off of the main dusty highway, you head along a dirt track with a featureless horizon all around you, capped by a deep blue sky. Suddenly, the road dips down into a secret little eucalyptus-scented valley that exudes the intimacy of a walled garden.

Right on the river lies this elegant and historical 1873 homestead, set back from a huge, half drowned eucalyptus tree where dozens of pelicans roost. Portee Station is the most famous homestead along this stretch of the mighty Murray, and is at the heart of a huge property that consists of a hard-to-comprehend 40,000 acres of grazing land, dotted with 5,000 sheep.

Recently, the owners, Ian and Margaret Clark, rebuilt the house, gave it eight luxury ensuite bedrooms and an adjoining 1,500m airstrip; executives wanting an Outback experience can now fly up from Adelaide or Melbourne for a weekend getaway.

It's not that the Clarks are sick of sheep - a twinkle still appears in Ian's eye when he's out inspecting his sheep - but the wool market has become precarious. Tourism is a safer bet.

Surrounded by river red gums up to 1000 years old, the stretch of Murray River in front of the homestead sustains at least 133 bird species, along with plenty of kangaroos, emus and wombats. The Clarks' knowledge of local plant, animal and river life, and the rich layers of Australian history complement all this.

Portee Station also stands on a site of genuine historic interest. In 1841, Edward John Eyre, the great Australian explorer, arrived here and built Moorundie, the first township along the whole Murray - a site now on Portee Station.

For 15 years, it served as an Aboriginal contact point, a police station, and rations depot for those brave and hardy settlers heading further into the forbidding Outback. "Then they had to abandon it because of floods," Ian explains. "I'll take you down tomorrow, show you where it used to be. There, you'll also see a very old willow, planted by Eyre himself who, apparently, brought it from Napoleon's grave before he came out to Australia."