Birdsville Races, here I come (again)
January 26, 2012
Laurie Kalms
By ALAN ERSKINE
WELL, it would have to be a fair sort of an outback trip…and priced to suit…after all, as big Laurie Kalms indicates in his advertising, accommodation is at the pub he owned for years, trips are now in his luxury 4WD purpose-built outback tour bus – and he’s just bought a sight-seeing plane!
The Big K, 67, a Sunraysia and Mallee footy legend and known far and wide as ‘The Bush Publican,’ has gone back to his early Birdsville Race tour days – he did them for 30 years – by once again organising trips into outback South Australia.
Only this time, there are a few major differences.
Laurie, all 6ft 4ins and 125kgs of him, has swapped his original old Bedford 12-seater van for a $350,000 purpose-built all-terrain 4WD 18-seater luxury tourer.
Accommodation for his passengers has gone from basic pub rooms or tents and swags to comfortable air-conditioned cabins with en suites, and…
…Laurie now has his own plane and personal pilot on permanent standby if any of his tour passengers want the optional extra of a two-hour flight over Lake Eyre.
It was 1977, after Laurie and a few mates had experienced the excitement that was Birdsville, that he decided to buy a 12-seater Bedford for $10,000, and put together a trip that took in Marree, Cooper Creek, the Birdsville Track and Birdsville Races…the biggest inland race meeting in Australia.
It was so successful, with a lot of repeat business, that Laurie, at that stage running a series of pubs in the Mallee, made it his annual ‘holiday,’ filling the Bedford…and other buses over the next 30-odd years, with fellow adventurers. Each trip covered about 5000 kilometres, and when he wore out the Bedford, Laurie changed to a Toyota Coaster…he went through four of them over the years…ending the annual outback adventures only when he bought the Marree pub (The Great Northern Hotel) four years ago.
A lot has happened in those four years. Lake Eyre started to fill, courtesy of the swollen Cooper Creek after heavy rains in Queensland, and people started to swarm into outback SA from across Australia, and around the world. One modest estimate is that at least 100,000 tourists visited Lake Eyre last year alone.
The modest pub accommodation was nowhere near adequate, so Laurie built 15 motels units in the back yard, along with a swimming pool. Then he established a small caravan park next door. When they continually filled up, Laurie bought a few blocks of land not far from the pub, and put in another 40 motel units.
By this time he was serving up to 300 meals a day, with military-like precision in the pub’s dining room. To overcome that, Laurie built a new 90-seat dining room adjoining the pub. His days began at 6am, and ended when he shut the bar at midnight.
Day after day, tourists turned up in their droves, by car, caravan, four-wheel drive, motorbikes, bicycles, and even a few hitch-hiking backpackers. Many of them wanted an aerial view of Lake Eyre, so Laurie organised for some planes and pilots from a Melbourne company owned by a mate. At one stage there were 12 planes working out of Marree, and another dozen or so based at William Creek, 200 kilometres away.
They were being kept so busy that last year, Laurie decided to buy his own plane – he got one from Tasmania – organised a pilot, and based them at the Marree airstrip, walking distance from the town. He’s more than happy with the work that’s been coming in.
Just before Christmas, someone expressed an interest in leasing and running the Marree Pub…it was an offer too good to refuse, and Laurie pocketed a few dollars and walked away, enjoying his first real break for four years.
But he misses the outback, its people and its unique attractions, so he’s decided to go back into the touring business. As luck would have it, a year ago he picked up the luxury 18-seater Isuzu four-wheel drive from a Brisbane-based tour company that couldn’t make ends meet. It’s a huge beast, a purpose-built all-terrain vehicle, air-conditioned with UHF radio, satellite phone and GPS, and complete with television and extra long range diesel tanks.
Laurie’s only advertised the trips twice, but has already attracted a lot of interest, with the first of the trips, leaving Monday, February 6, is almost sold out. Depending on demand, he will do the five-day Marree and Lake Eyre trips once every two weeks, and the Birdsville Races every August. He has purposely kept pricing to a reasonable level…”after all,” he says, “ I’ve still got an interest in the pub, and I own the bus and the plane.”
The five-day trip costs $650 per person…that covers all travel, accommodation, and meals. Laurie’s plane is based at Marree permanently, and he’s offering two-hour flights over Lake Eyre and Cooper Creek as an optional extra for $395.
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