Daly Waters

Daly Waters is a tiny settlement on the Stuart Highway in the centre of the Northern Territory, around 600 kilometres south of Darwin and 900 kilometres north of Alice Springs. The town has a permanent population of around 7 people but its centerpiece, the Daly Waters Pub, is one of the most famous in Australia and the de facto cultural anchor of the Stuart Highway road trip.

The pub was built in 1930 as part of an unlikely chapter in Australian aviation history. Daly Waters was selected as a refuelling stop on the Sydney to London Imperial Airways route, which started flying in 1934 using a chain of small airfields across northern Australia. The hangar and the original aerodrome facilities are still standing on the edge of town and are listed on the National Heritage List as the oldest surviving international airfield infrastructure in the country. The pub was originally built to serve the airline crews and the cattle drovers passing through.

Today the pub is famous for its decor: every wall, ceiling and beam is covered with personal items left by visitors over the decades. There are thousands of business cards, hats, bras, Akubras, ID cards, foreign banknotes, school ties, photographs and notes pinned to every surface. The collection has accumulated continuously since the 1980s and is part of the standard rite of passage for first-time visitors who add their own item.

The pub serves the famous Daly Waters Beef and Barra (a barramundi and beef combo plate that has been on the menu unchanged for decades), runs nightly entertainment in the dry season including live music, country comedy and the long-running Daly Waters Hat Race, and has a basic but functional camping ground out the back. Most travellers stay one night on a Stuart Highway road trip and many declare it the highlight of the drive.

The pub is open year-round but is busiest in the dry season (May to September) when the highway traffic peaks. The wet season (November to March) is much quieter. Daly Waters Airfield is now a private airstrip, and the closest commercial airport is Tennant Creek (400 kilometres south).