Quezi

Eromanga Sunset (photo by NeilsPhotography - CC-BY)

If you want to escape the tourist traps, you’ve come to the right place! The population of Eromanga is 80. You can get there by flying to Quilpie (population 620) then driving a hundred and a bit kilometres west, or you can start in Brisbane and drive over a thousand kilometres. Either way, you’ll pass through a lot of dust.

You can stay at the Old Royal Hotel, built in 1885 as a staging post for the Cobb & Co Stagecoaches. Back in the 1880s, opal miners rushed to Eromanga, and the town was colloquially known as Opalopolis. Nowadays over a million barrels of oil are extracted each year from the nearby Eromanga Basin, and there are cattle and sheep being grazed nearby (at acres per animal rather than animals per acre).

Eromanga has the usual facilities of any historic small Australian mining town – a hotel, and a rusting outdoor machinery museum. Apparently there will soon also be an indoor museum. The local park has a children’s play area (covered from the sun), and a “stunning mining memorial, inlaid with opal”.

It’s hot in summer (24 to 37 degrees Celsius), and pleasant-to-chilly in Winter (6 to 20 degrees Celsius), with lots of sun and little rain.

Tourists are welcome to join the community barbecue held every Saturday night, and if you’re there at Easter you can catch the Eromanga Rodeo and Gymkhana.

If Eromanga is too cosmopolitan for you, tourists are also welcomed warmly in Adavale (population 12), Toompine (population 4) and Cheepie (population 2).