Tilpa: The Town of 9 People

A true outback town, for what Tilpa lacks in people it certainly makes up for in land to explore.

Our journey to Tilpa

My one piece of advice for the journey to Tilpa, is make sure your vehicle is up to the challenge. You will definitely need a 4x4 to get here as the dirt road is extremely corrugated and bumpy for hundred of km’s.

We ran into some trouble on the dirt road from Wilcannia as our trailer wheel came off the axel of the trailer. We could not have been in a more deserted area and had not had reception since Silverton (2 days prior).

Luckily a group of tradies heading to Tilpa ended up driving past us and stopping to help after about half an hour of us trying to fix it ourselves. One of the great things about travelling in the outback is the willingness of the community and the locals to help you out.

Safe to say it was a pretty mentally draining day as a journey that should have taken 3 hours took almost double that. As we were almost reaching Tilpa, the sun began to set and the whole days frustrations were dissolved as we witnessed one of the most incredible sunsets I have ever seen. We saw two completely different views from each side of the car. The left side had a beautiful orange, red and yellow sunset and the right side; a cotton candy blue and pink sky.

What to do

Tilpa was one of my favourite towns because of just how remote it is. It’s official population is 9 people and the town consists of a pub and a playground!

After our long journey and recovering from our trailer issues, we were dying for a beverage and headed to the pub. I would definitely recommend visiting here because it truly is the definition of a proper bush pub. When we went to order food they told us they simply didn’t have any because it hadn’t been delivered yet. We laughed, ordered a beer and had a chat to a few of the locals who were larger than life! 

Where to stay

If you go to Tilpa, camping is probably your best bet. There are a variety of free camp areas along Tilpa Weir which is where we stayed on our first night. Our second night we stayed at Kallara Station which is a privately owned property with powered and unpowered sites and a few lodges which you can stay in too. There are a few privately owned properties in the area in which you can pay a small fee to stay on, which I would highly recommend checking out!

Kallara Station gave a real insight into proper farm life. There were lots of dogs (which was a big win obviously), but the property sits on 150,000 acres so gave us the ability to access ammenities but still camp far away with absolutely no one else in sight. We ended up spending the entire second day just parked up along the river reading, listening to podcasts and driving the motorbike around the property.

Tilpa was one of those places that is definitely worth the tough journey to get there.