Australia's truest hotspot of Oodnadatta has its pink roadhouse for sale
Temperatures averaged 40 degrees Celsius across Australia on Tuesday – a new record – but that’s nothing for the 166 residents of the South Australian desert town of Oodnadatta, where 50 degrees is forecast for later this week.
Oodnadatta currently holds the all-time Australian record temperature of 50.7 degrees set on January 2, 1960.
Property Observer notes not much happens on the Oodnadatta property front. No residential listings among its 60 total properties are currently for sale or rent on the major websites, and the last RP Data sale was $20,000 in 2008.
But the Pink Roadhouse is for sale.
Both the business and the freehold is for sale through Steve Foreman at Dale Wood Business Sales Consultancy Kent Town.
The business is being priced at $300,000 plus stock. The land has been more difficult to price, with Steve Foreman currently calculating the two recent desert general store sales with a view to offering prospective buyers an indication later this month.
Described as a "world-famous icon of Australia's outback", the roadhouse is located 200 kilometres north east of Coober Pedy.
It's the only business in town and consists of a fuel outlet, post office, bottle shop, hardware store, and general store providing groceries, fruit and vegs.
And the all-important souvenirs as a traveller's oasis.
The licensed restaurant provides sit-down meals for breakfast, lunch and early evening meals.
The business also boasts a large onsite mechanical workshop and a contract to service aircraft with aviation fuel located at the airport.
The sale includes caravan park and motel-style accommodation. There is a private-use swimming pool.
The outback town has had temperatures soaring above 40 degrees every day this year.
"The ground, the building, everything is so hot, you walk outside and you feel it's going to burn you," Pink Roadhouse owner Lynnie Plate told the Adelaide Advertiser.
Earlier this week the roadhouse couldn't serve unleaded fuel after midday because it was vapourising.
Oodnadatta is surrounded by 7,800 square kilometres of mostly with cattle stations in arid pastoral rangelands close to the Simpson Deserte, 1,000 km north of Adelaide.
The name is derived from Arrernte utnadata, meaning mulga blossom.
The population was 229 in 1976 and 160 in 1986. The 2006 census reported a population of 277 and it was 166 in 2011.
Briefly listed in 2010, the property has been held by the family for just short of four decades.
Making it possible for 4wd’s to travel into the Simpson Desert, it was the Plate family who pioneered The Oodnadatta Track branding around 1980 and overseeing it become consistent with the Birdsville and Strzelecki Tracks which link together forming a tourist route.
