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When Baz Luhrmann's blockbuster film, Australia, opens in Bahrain shortly the Kimberley region looks set to steal the show. Fiona Dunlop heads for the remote homestead where Nicole Kidman and her fellow stars stayed during filming.
From inside a roaring single-prop plane, I watch the rugged Kimberley region of north-western Australia unfold.
Dun-coloured and etched with tree-lined gullies, escarpments, gulfs, serpentine tidal rivers, sprinklings of eucalyptus, grassland, mud and salt-flats, it is more than one-and-a-half times the size of the UK, yet has a population of only 30,000. Then a sprawling, flat-topped mountain looms into sight, looking like a giant jigsaw piece.
This - along with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman - is one of the stars of the much-hyped Australia, the blockbuster directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Brooding, omnipresent, Mount Cockburn could well become the next big Aussie natural icon particularly as, unlike the area around Uluru (Ayers Rock), virtually all of Kimberley is unadulterated, offering drama, an authentic taste of the wild and varied, albeit far-flung, accommodation. The best way to experience it? On horseback of course, like Kidman and Jackman.
Luhrmann's film, set at the outbreak of the Second World War, tells the tale of an English aristocrat (Kidman) who inherits a cattle station.
After arriving by flying boat in Darwin, she sets off on horseback across the Top End of the continent to claim it. Mid-gallop, she falls in love with a handsome local stockman (Jackman).
Scenes of the devastating Japanese bombing of Darwin contrast with Aboriginal life and steamy romance at the remote homestead, building up a lyrical picture of Australian history and the hardships of the Outback.
In fact the filming was beset with the kind of tribulations the Outback specialises in, from the merciless climate (heat, dust, unexpected rains) to mind-boggling distances, complex logistics (including trucking in 1,400 authentic, shorthorn cattle from Queensland) and the need for permission from indigenous owners of the land.
Given her gruelling days, Kidman was naturally after the most comfortable accommodation available; however, the best in the area, the exclusive Homestead at El Questro - rooms start at BD437 a night - could not help: all six rooms were taken.
She ended up staying in Kununurra, the Kimberley region's prosaic market town.
Take this as a warning: you need to book about a year in advance to experience the cosseting that has made El Questro's reputation (and made it a favourite with Kylie Minogue and Kidman, on previous occasions).
However, there are plenty more affordable options in the 5,000 sq km El Questro Wilderness Park, from tent-shaped cabins by the lush Emma Gorge to family bungalows and a campsite at the 'township', the hub of the property.
The 60 cabins put you very close to your neighbours, but the gorge brings nature straight to your veranda. Raucous birdlife kicks in at dawn, with screeching corellas, rainbow bee-eaters, screaming bowerbirds and honeyeaters, while a boulder-clambering gorge hike to a waterhole reveals endless native plants - pandanus, melaleuca, grevillea, wattle. You may spot an ungainly goanna lizard or a wallaroo (like a big wallaby and, bizarrely, called a euro in some parts of Australia). In the magical Chamberlain Gorge, rock wallabies hop from ledge to ledge.
In contrast, half an hour's drive from Emma Gorge at the chic Homestead, nature comes under control: all is sweetness, light, haute cuisine, manicured lawns and views to die for. Nicole, eat your heart out.
In 21st-century Kimberley, four-wheel-drives are inevitably the rule, so early one morning I bounce along El Questro's dirt road past the thermal springs - but only as far as the stables. Yawning in the cool morning, six of us and our mounts set off on an irregular route along stony tracks through bush to savannah and, finally, onto an open plain, perfect for a canter beneath yet another scenic ridge.
We splash through a river, then push through undergrowth, tripping down a gully, admiring old cattle-mustering gear (the 7,000 cattle on this station are far to the north, well away from visitors, so there is little chance of me having a go), spotting birds or simply riding in silence, watching that inimitable clear light intensify. Three hours pass in a flash and we're back at the stables, where a braying adopted donkey, who has faithfully followed our trail, throws herself at her mate. I throw myself at a coffee at the nearby campsite.
Wherever you are, you never lose sight of majestic Mount Cockburn.
Formed from the same red ochre sandstone as Uluru, it's the grand-daddy at 1.8 billion years old (Uluru is a mere 100 million), and the serrated cliffs take on equally mesmerising hues at dawn and dusk, as if irradiated by the sun.
The circumference clocks up about 120km, not easy driving, in particular along my next chosen route, the Karunjie Track, which is unsurfaced, bumpy and entails fording crocodile-infested rivers.
On horseback, I feel like a queen, if not quite Nicole Kidman (but it was her double who did most of the riding anyway). As a group of us amble along the King River late one afternoon, Rachel, our leader, points at the banks below: sure enough, a croc is lazily sunning itself. Cattle graze or rest under trees. We stop to admire a particularly spectacular boab, the site of Kidman and Jackman's first on-screen tryst, then trot on from the beautiful, lush river bank to canter across open grassland.
Eventually, at the top of a gentle mound surveying this vast, immensely powerful landscape, we join Roderick's wife, Alida. Toasting the golden light, I yet again pay homage to that bewitching, ever-present mountain, this time glowing vivid purple.
FACT-FILE
Luxury Homestead double rooms at El Questro (+61 8 9169 1777;
www.voyages.com.au) cost from BD437 a night; tented cabins sleeping four from BD72 a night. Horse-riding from BD22 for two hours. Digger's Rest Station (+61 8 9161 1029; www.diggersreststation.com.au) offers double 'bush huts' from BD28 a night; bunk rooms from BD31 a night; camping from BD3 per person.
Kununurra is the main Kimberley airport, with daily flights from Darwin from BD68 return (www.airnorth.com.au).
For more information see www.australia.com
