Betoota pub to reopen in town with no people

Hardly a bypass in the scope of the country, well worth a few hours looking around there and the racecourse, have done it a few times :)
I bet licensing would be huge in cost.

It will need a lot of cleaning up, and if they put in some basic supplies, maybe even a diesel bowser (new one required :) ), and put in a nice campground with basic amenities, they should do ok.

Plenty of travellers passing by, and of course BV races and BRB type times would be a boon.

Road signage is pretty good, it draws you in . . . but no doubt they will improve this even more.

If they get some good camping facilities in there it would be a real attraction for people leaving or arriving BV at awkward times a nice spot to set up for the night.

Not sure just how much of the area they have, if only the fenced pub area it could be hard setting up in that area for camping, not an overly large space.

I should have also mentioned Betoota races as well in previous post, another boon period.

According to Google maps the deviation adds 7.2 km to your journey. Hardly worth worrying about the extra when you are touring over those vast distances. With the condition of the track into Deon's Lookout that I have experienced, that is a longer distance in time to divert to there.

These days there's plenty of travellers out there willing to detour a short distance to visit places, especially if it's an iconic pub and has free camping available closeby. The camping needs to be walking distance away and they have good food available, supply those couple of things and I reckon it's a good chance the place can succeed (though obviously will need to cope with very few if any visitors in the Summer period).
I'm one of those time poor travellers you mentioned Tony, we have detoured to the Noccundra Pub before when going from Thargomindah to The Dig Tree, just wanted a feed and a cold refreshing beverage of choice before continuing on the drive. Granted Noccundra is on a route other travellers take to Cameron Corner so has a steadier traffic stream aswell, but we were happy to detour there even though it meant back tracking to continue on our drive.
Speaking of time poor...i'm currently planing a 2 week trip for later this year from Brisbane to Ayres Rock and back again, should be a great trip if we get to climb the rock as we plan to do....lol
Out of curiosity....Was wondering if the old double decker bus is still there at Betoota or not. The other more well known bus got driven into a hole a few years ago, wonder if this one still exists?

Camping would be a lifesaver I think, if they put some good amenities in like drop toilets and bush showers (similar to Mt Dare setup :) ), then even $8 - $10 a head a night is reasonable.
Maybe have a 2 or more night stay for a couple of bucks less.

I feel a REAL winner, would be a Dalhousie / Mungerannie style swimming hole, sub artesian, slow fed, people love the dip at Dalhousie etc, and wildlife love the permanent source of water into a small creek system.

I think Birdsville is crazy not having the geo-thermal power station runoff going to a Dalhousie style swimming hole . . . the carwash is GREAT, but a swim at either side would be incredibly popular.

The yellow bus was there at Betoota last time we went through, but that might be 2 years ago now.
Not sure where the other one went from Bollards Lagoon property went (between Merti Merti and Cameron Cnr), but that was an identical one.
Thinking about it, I recall I read once the Bollard owners removed the bus about the time they closed off access up the border through their land.

Think I have read somewhere they are only going to have the pub open at certain times of the year, probably only during the tourist season.

Read somewhere that Bollards Lagoon property owners got sick of people camping at that other yellow double decker bus (even though it's a non camp area being close to stock waterhole) and they were sick of the grubs leaving rubbish everywhere there, so they dug a hole and dozed the bus into it and buried it....giving no reason for people to want to camp there now

Mind boggling re the yellow bus and bad camping practices . . . getting covered in graffiti was another thing I guess, who in that low a level of intelligence travels such routes, and take their spray cans to tag things ?

ian.g, makes sense, the bloke is a Logan Smash Repairer I read ?
Maybe the pub is his retirement plan, or maybe he can shoot back to town in summer and run the biz . . . or better, go play on the coast for a few months in part yearly holiday mode :)

Hi Les, also has a property at Glenmorgan according to Facebook, interesting that they won't open until August, to catch Betoota and Birdsville races, I think I would be trying to get open earlier to also catch the Big Red Bash and Finke traffic.

I think it will go ok if there is a bit of character about the place, good food and camping available
I prefer camping at places like that over staying at say Birdsville.
A artisan spring would be great but probably cost prohibitive, Mungarannie's bore was recently redone and the cost was about 1.5million. Getting a permit to do so even f you could fund it would be another event no doubt

Hope it goes good for them

To my memory there is no bore at the pub, all their water (limited) comes from the waterhole that they share with Mount Leonard Station, used to be a mill that pumped it up to a overhead tank.

I can't recall a bore either Ian . . . there must be reasonable water available there for the racetrack operations though.
That could be a camping ground killer as visitors often need some availability to water for ablution and drinking, council would likely require this.
Ah well, whatever way they reopen the pub, hope they manage a go of it.

"That could be a camping ground killer as visitors often need some availability to water for ablution and drinking, council would likely require this."

Camp grounds for self contained campers usually does not provide water.

Hi Les, I think all the water for the races is trucked there by the council in one of their road crews tanker trailers, similar to what happens out at Big Red for the BRB. I know at the old race track there was no water at all and all trainers had to bring their own water for the horses. Most of them used to camp at the Mount Leonardwaterhole and walk the horses up to the track. The new racetrack is a bit further away than the old track and I have not been there since they started using it so I don't know how they get on.

Cheers Ian, we have been there twice and once spent a fair hour at the new track, taking pics etc.
Didn't look for taps, but you are probably right, unless there was a decent artesian bore put in, the'd have to bring it in, jeez that would be costly.

Re PeterD reply . . . what I'm saying about camping and councils, is in this day and age, councils would likely require people providing camping to supply water, so maybe the whole camping thing will be too hard.
They would have to have some sort of attractive grounds to keep people there a couple of nights, so some irrigating would be needed.
Many properties in that part of the country do supply water for ablution and cooking, boil to drink, and that's what Betoota would have to do to keep people around, not just drop in for a beer, then alos with little reason to shop any basics, maybe they would get some fuel, or wait for BV or Windorah.

Time will tell, it'll be a while before I go that way again.

Cameron Corner never really used to supply any water and had fairly limited facilities for anyone camping last time I stayed there (was 6 years ago)...they still seemed to get their fair share of punters happy to pull up a patch of dirt for the night and enjoy a feed and a few coldies.