The Famous Walkabout Creek Hotel

Date of Adventure 21 November 2024

I want to write up this side trip before I forget some of the details and things that impressed me. One of my interests as I drive around is visiting some of the small hotels and pubs that still survive in small towns in the general outback. This one was a special side trip to the Walkabout Creek Hotel. It’s the hotel that was used in the first Crocodile Dundee movie. So I thought it was worth driving 60 or 70 km out of my way to see it. When I got there, at about 5 minutes to 1:00 PM there was a sign that said it was open from 10 to 1. I was thinking that they would close it up on me. But, two young guys in another Troopy arrived at the same time and when we went in there was only one guy at the bar and the proprietors. They were unbelievably friendly and helpful. They kept the place open for us and told us stories about its history and while we were there another 5 or 6 people joined us and came and left. I suppose that I spent more than an hour there and had a couple of beers. Unfortunately, they weren’t cooking so no lunch that day.

The hotel is in McKinlay, Queensland, about 100 km from Cloncurry. Its history goes back to around 1900 when it was first licensed. It was a hotel/pub that served the farming and ranching community. It was named the Federal McKinlay hotel until 1988. Then it was used as the setting for the pub in the first Crocodile Dundee movie. The bar in the movie was actually a movie set somewhere near Brisbane, not the actual bar in the hotel. After the movie, the hotel was purchased and then moved about a half kilometer. The pilings that held it up were getting rotten and the hotel was located off the main highway through town. So they moved it to where it now stands, somewhat reconstructed and set up as a tourist location.

The town of McKinlay isn’t much. Aside from tourists, it serves for the local agriculture and there are a couple of mines nearby. I think that they are copper and other non-precious metals.

The hotel itself looks pretty authentic from the outside.

And inside it’s full of memorabilia and photos.

The sign behind me in the second photo is the actual sign that was posted on the building when the movie was made. Although done up for tourists, it’s really well done and just feels kind of like an honest bush pub. The “proprietors” that day were a woman who is the sister of the owner and her husband. They were more than happy to stay open and talk to all of us about the history and details of the hotel. There are lots of old photos of the movie days.

One of the things that I found really cool is the radiator on the wall. They shot out the radiator and windshield on the International Truck in the movie and then had to replace them overnight so they could reshoot scenes the next day. I guess that they went through a few radiators. This is one of the ones from the movie days.

It’s a kind of crazy history of how the bits and pieces got brought to the hotel over the years. The original producers brought the movie scene bar from wherever it was on a movie lot all the way to McKinlay and gave it to the owners. That movie set is behind the original hotel building and they took us out and let us take photos and talked about the process of moving it.

Towards the end of the time I was there a young couple came in and we started talking. They have travelled a bit of Australia, pulling a small trailer. They were leaving their “corporate” jobs in Brisbane and moving to a small town west of Alice Springs. We had a long conversation about places to visit, roads to travel, etc. I’d been debating the drive from Boulia to Alice Springs along Donohue and the Plenty highway. They told me that it’s well worth driving. The only thing to think about is weather.

In the end the drive to McKinlay was well worth it. Lots of interesting folks, some great discussion, and a tourist site that’s worth a visit.