Kidman's Camp, Bourke review: Camp by the Darling

In the company of backpackers and grey nomads, Bruce Elder finds outback hospitality and a bushman's cabin.

If you want to experience outback NSW in comfort - and, believe me, "comfort" and "outback NSW" rarely appear in the same sentence - check into Kidman's Camp at North Bourke.

You can relax in the large and comfortable rooms, sit on the verandah of the new timber cabins, splash in the swimming pool surrounded by rose gardens and gaze across the Darling River flood plain, which was dry and dusty after seven years of drought when I stayed. Since then, western NSW has experienced enough rain to turn the countryside green and put smiles of the faces of the local farmers. Still, the drought lasted too long in a place where, even with rain, life is tough and creature comforts, at least for the locals, are few.

Kidman's Camp started life as a caravan park and, as you might expect, turning a caravan park into an upmarket destination is a challenge. It probably helps that one of the park owners, Peter Simmonds, a former Australian champion bronc rider, also happens to be a builder. Here he combines his love of horses and a penchant for equine ornamentation with a love of burnished, but unmilled, eucalypts.

On a river bank above the Darling River flood plain, just out of view of the river, Simmonds has built five timber cabins, each with a tree trunk holding up the roof, with exposed timber walls and huge, knotty beams smoothed only by an axe and adze. He has furnished the cabins in a style best described as contemporary rustic - with a rough-hewn homemade bed supporting a very comfortable mattress, two raw-timber rocking chairs on the verandah and a saddle strategically located on the crossbeam above the bed. The effect is a subtle mix of contemporary comfort and the rawness of a 19th-century bushman's cabin.

Now, before you pack your bags, hop in the car and drive the 778 kilometres from Sydney to North Bourke, it is worth knowing that Kidman's Camp is also a caravan park capable of holding 500 people. At this point, Simmonds has completed five new cabins - numbers 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 - so you'll need to be specific about booking them, as opposed to the older, less attractive cabins on the site.

This is, however, no ordinary caravan park. It has a huge resort-style swimming pool edged with iceberg roses and green lawns dotted with chairs and tables and there is a covered picnic area. And on Wednesday and Friday nights a number of Bourke bush poets, led by Nicky Brown, lead recitations and songs around a campfire after a barbecue, which over the years has raised thousands of dollars for charities in Bourke.

As with most caravan parks, there is a shop selling basic groceries and the patrons, in caravans and tents, tend to be a chatty and happy crowd of enterprising European backpackers and grey nomads making their way around the country.

Visitors wanting a "proper" breakfast should either cook their own (there are facilities including a full-size fridge and a decent stove in each cabin) or head into town, where Morrall's Bakery Cafe, on the highway at 37 Mitchell Street, is considered the best. It certainly serves a decent cup of coffee.