Over two decades running one of Queensland’s most remote roadhouses, Brad Allan has copped plenty of cyclones, fished dozens of stranded motorists out of the river and seen a three-fold increase in traffic. 

He and his wife Modena have sold the Archer River Roadhouse on the road to the tip of Cape York Peninsula after 18 years at the helm, with the new owners taking over the business this week.

It is the second time the Cape York institution, famous for its enormous burgers, has changed hands in its 40-year history.

When the Allans and their friend Hugh Atherton bought the roadhouse in 2005, the Peninsula Development Road was unsealed and the corrugations on the road rattled off car parts and filled every nook and cranny with red bulldust.

Now, much of the road is bitumen-sealed, opening it to more freight and travellers including organised tour groups and caravaners.

“I think it was about 11,000 cars in the first year and we’re up around 32 or 33,000 now so it’s certainly increased substantially,” Mr Allan said.

Cyclones and steep learning curves

The roadhouse is on a 400-hectare plot about 600 kilometres north-west of Cairns and is one of the last places for fuel, food, accommodation and minor car repairs on the road to Pajinka, the northernmost point of the Australian mainland.

Mr Allan used to come up with his mates for an annual fishing trip and got a bee in his bonnet about buying the roadhouse while “scheming up plans” on the long drive home.

“We went and had a look at it and it was a little bit out of our league, so to speak, so we left it for another couple of years and then she was more keen to go then, so we negotiated a deal and went from there.”

About a week after getting the keys, a cyclone hit. The following year, they flooded during another cyclone.

“The first two years here we copped them. We didn’t get any structural damage but a lot of trees down and obviously a lot of mess to clean up, but we kept going,” he said.

The remoteness and climate didn’t worry the Allans, having done stints in the Northern Territory, but the early years were a steep learning curve.

“It was just getting your head around running a remote business and all the difficulties it entails,” he said.

‘There’s always someone that drives in it’

The cool, dry months saw hundreds of people through the doors on a busy day, long hours and “seven days a week grilling” — something Mr Allan said he would not miss.

Then business would slow as the wet season approached, and the roadhouse would stock up on tens of thousands of litres of fuel, hundreds of cartons of beer and plenty of food before flooding rains cut the region’s roads for months and transformed the river into a mighty torrent.

A few cars would get swept off the causeway each year, forcing Mr Allan to launch his boat to pluck soggy motorists out of the swollen river.

“We always average a couple every year. Would be 20 or 30 easily,” he said.

“Every year we just wait and wonder if we’re going to get through it without one but nup, there’s always someone that drives in it, gets caught out.

“One that potentially could’ve been really bad was an elderly couple and a couple of kids that had driven into the river at night.

While the wet season brought powerful storms, it also meant a reprieve.

“I think the bits I’ll miss is the lifestyle up here and getting the place back to yourself in the wet when there’s hardly any people around and you get to see it for in all its beauty then, when it transforms when the rains come,” he said.

Taking it to the next level

The Allans will move back to Cairns while they ponder their next move.

“When we came here it was at a point where it needed to be taken to the next level and we thought we did that and now it’s probably at that point in time … it’s time for someone else to have a go,” Mr Allan said.

“We always want it to keep going. It’s part of your legacy I suppose. You don’t want to see it fail. You don’t want to see the reputation destroyed, but I don’t think it will.

New owner Nullarbor Holdings owns five other remote roadhouses including Kings Creek Station and Erldunda Roadhouse in the Northern Territory, and Nullarbor Roadhouse in South Australia.

Chief executive and part-owner Tony McFadzean, a former Woolworths executive, said one of his business partners had family on Cape York in nearby Musgrave.

“My business partners had seen the property and loved it and recommended it to me that it was something we should be acquiring when we could,” he said.

“So they’d been communicating with the former owners and said, ‘Hey, if you’re ever going to sell maybe give us a call,’ and that call came just recently.”

He said there would be no major changes to the business this season and all existing staff had been retained with the addition of new managers Rhonda and Dave Crossley from Port Douglas who had spent the past few years delivering boats around the world.

“We’ve got to learn this property before we start making changes,” Mr McFadzean said.

“We’ve got skilled people within our business that understand the mechanics of remote roadhouses, but it’s trying to replace a family that have run it [for 18 years] — the daunting part is following in their footsteps,” he said.

“They’ve done an incredible job, they know everyone, they’re linked in some special way to everyone, they’ve built all these connections.”

Mr McFadzean said he was optimistic about the future of the roadhouse.

“It’s the last turn-off before people go up to the tip so it’s a place that is always going to attract customers and commercially we were always looking to purchase a business where there’s a high traffic flow and this is guaranteed,” he said.

“I cannot believe the amount of families and people heading up to the tip, it’s just unbelievable.

 “Families are meeting up — never met each other before — and helping each other out and guiding each other through to get to the tip. It’s just amazing how all that works.