After three years on the market, the Walkabout Creek Hotel, famous for its role in the 1986 blockbuster Crocodile Dundee, has found its new custodians.
Previous owners Debbie and Frank Wurst had been aiming to retire since 2022 after more than a decade at the helm of the McKinlay pub, around 200 kilometres from Mount Isa.
Local Angus Brodie and wife Jo Cranney have now stepped up to the challenge, settling this week for an undisclosed amount.
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.
Originally named the Federation Hotel, the current building was constructed in 1900, licensed in 1901, and the McKinlay LGA today counts 836 residents.
The town itself has around 160 residents, and the pub also serves as the bottleshop, post office and caravan park, making it the hub of McKinlay.
Brodie, 33 and a local grazier, has many early memories of the pub, from running around with other kids to having ‘sleepovers’ until it was time to go home.
He met his wife when she was nursing in Mount Isa. Cranney grew up in Goondiwindi and gave up nursing when the couple began to run a cattle property and started a family.
Brodie had no experience pouring a beer prior to last week but is ready for the upcoming challenge, looking to the pub as an alternative income stream.
While the couple are not planning to make many changes, they are keen to showcase their beef on the menu.
The two are grateful to the Wursts for keeping the Walkabout in great condition.
“It’s a credit to Frank and Debbie. They’ve really looked after it over the 11 years they’ve been there,” Brodie told the ABC.
The Wursts have mixed feelings about handing over the reins, saying they would miss the pub and the people, but were excited for what was to come next.
“If you’re going to buy a pub, may as well make it a famous one,” said Frank.
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, in 1986 the Walkabout was shown off to the world as the local watering hole of Paul Hogan portraying Crocodile Dundee, which became the highest grossing Australian film of all time in its day.
In the beer garden lies the bar used on the film set, which was donated to the pub when filming had ended.
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.
Next year will mark four decades since the movie’s release, and the new owners will celebrate the occasion.
“It’s a crucial part of the identity of the pub, and we love it,” says Brodie.
