Outback legend and preferred public house of Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee, the Walkabout Creek Hotel, is being offered to the next owners wild at heart enough to buy it.
The original Walkabout pub was established in 1892, in the red earth Queensland town of McKinlay, a casual 1,598 kilometres north-west of Brisbane.
The current Hotel building was constructed in 1900, and the McKinlay LGA today counts 836 residents.
Somewhat nondescript from the outside, within the character-filled pub is heavily adorned in more than a century of memorabilia, faded snapshots of past times, and jokes of yesteryear.
But unlike so many other startingly unique outback pubs, the Walkabout was shown off to the world, in 1986, as the local watering hole of Paul Hogan portraying Crocodile Dundee, which became the highest grossing Australian film of all time in its day.
Representing a rugged reality that is the wilderness of the wide, brown land, the Walkabout has found its way onto a lot of people’s bucket lists, attracting sightseers from around the world.
Propelled by the subsequent sequel, Mick Dundee is still alive in the hearts of many. The Dundee Fest was held in town in 2016, celebrating the film’s 30th anniversary.
Deb and Frank Wust took the plunge and bought the larger-than-life pub in 2013, and after the better part of a decade report they have been “living the dream” but are ready to pass the torch and retire.
Frank laments they will miss their eccentric home, but will return regularly and are eager to see what the next custodian does with it.
“If you’re gonna buy a pub, may as well make it a famous one,” he told the ABC.
