Roadhouses

Life would be difficult in the outback without roadhouses and the tourist industry would be next to impossible.  Loads of retired people who need regular comfort breaks would be stuck in a place where going behind a bush is fraught with extreme danger.  These roadhouses are the pubs, restaurants, coffee houses and petrol stations.  Some like Frontier offer camel rides and others like Curtin Springs offer camel burgers.  The camel was once the preferred transport system in the bush.  Hot, dry flat and interminable what's not to like ......... if you are a camel.  They were managed by Afghan cameleers, until they were replaced by the train and the ute (short for utility truck, I think, and basically a pick up).  The roads follow the old camel paths quite closely as does the train that goes from Adelaide to Alice Springs then on to Darwin.  The latter is called the Ghan after the original cameleers.
This one was more like a US roadhouse of the 50s including the country and western music which turned out to come from Grand Old Op ....... sorry Adelaide.

 Curtin Springs has a character all of its own.

It's difficult to know whether the spelling mistake is deliberate or not but given the nature of the rest of the place I would go with deliberate.

See what I mean.

There was the obligatory art for sale including the calligraphy, which was on sale for Aus$100,000.

 It was produced by the Japanese girl on the right, three of them seemed to do all the work.  She seemed impressed with my interest and gave me her valuable art work as a gift.