Birdsville's iconic home of the curried camel pie sells for $1.2m
The new owners of Australia’s most iconic outback bakery, The Birdsville Bakery, have officially settled on the $1.2 million deal, marking a new era of investment and development for Queensland’s most remote town.
After the 2:30pm settlement on March 1, former owner Dusty Miller handed over the keys and recipes for the bakery’s famous curried camel pies to Martin Josselyn, ending 12 years of handling the heat in Outback Queensland’s most famous kitchen.
Mr Josselyn purchased the property in the first week of October 2016, through his company Diamantina Property Holdings Pty Ltd.
The sale also coincides with a number of public upgrades to the area, including the airport, to support Birdsville’s burgeoning event calendar – which centres around the Birdsville Races in September.
The purchase of the Birdsville Bakery is the single biggest private tourism investment in Birdsville, which sits on the edge of the Simpson Desert, for over a decade.
According to Mr Josselyn “buying a bakery wasn’t always my dream, but when Dusty put the property on the market last year, I knew it was the perfect investment.”
“Birdsville is a fantastic place with some really great events, assets and operators,” Mr Josselyn said.
“There’s a trend of investment in Birdsville, both in government spending and private enterprise, and we’re just part of that.”
The deal represents the biggest private individual private tourism investment in the town in more than a decade. Photo: Supplied
The sale of the property is not just a boon for the Birdsville economy, but the population.
The Josselyns plan to move their 4WD tour business, Adventure Australia Treks and Tours (AATT), and staff, who’ll now make up six per cent of the population of Birdsville, 1400km south-west from Townsville.
Tourism is a major industry for this tiny town on the edge of the Simpson Desert, which attracts between 40,000 to 60,000 visitors annually.
Most of these visitors, approximately 30,000, coincide their visit with the Birdsville Races and the Big Red Bash, which sees population swell from 120 to 10,000 over a weekend.
Events like the Birdsville Races and Big Red Bash will become key for the new Birdsville baker, who will spend most of the eight months the bakery is open each year, stockpiling the 15,000 pies that sell over race weekend each September.
Replacing Dusty in the kitchen are Johnny Bonde, who has been Dusty’s apprentice for the past 12 months, and French-born chef, Sebastian Badey, who’ll ensure the bakery’s pies remain in pole position in Trip Advisor’s ‘Best Pies in Queensland’ list.
While the bakery menu will remain largely unchanged, the Josselyns plan to open the bakery’s Hard Road Cafe at night for bistro dinners and offer camp-oven dinner packages during peak tourist season.
Tourism and Events Queensland’s latest (Sep 2016) overnight visitor data for Outback Queensland paints good fortune for businesses in the town.
Over the past three years, Outback Queensland has seen a growth of 13.4 per cent in domestic visitors, compared to 5.3 per cent experienced by Queensland’s capital Brisbane.
Of course, it helps that the closest competition is 600 kilometres away.
Aside from running the bakery, the Josselyns will also expand AATT’s tag-a-long and guided 4WD routes from their Birdsville base and offer new day tours for visitors.
As the desert roads open from March 15 and Birdsville prepares itself for the tourist season, AATT will offer two-day tours around Birdsville’s sites, an ‘Under the Stars’ camp oven dinner package, and long-haul tours from Birdsville.
The bakery’s first “official” day of service is April 1, 2017, marked with a housewarming pie-party from 11am.
Those keen to buy a slice of Outback Queensland real estate needn’t despair, the Bedourie Roadhouse, 191 kilometres north of Birdsville, is currently up for sale.
This story was originally published in The North West Star.
With Jack Needham
