Owner Jo Cornel (right) is ready to sell up after three years running the shop. Photo / Foxtrap Roadhouse Cooladdi
Owner Jo Cornel (right) is ready to sell up after three years running the shop. Photo / Foxtrap Roadhouse Cooladdi
An entire town is up for sale in Australia’s outback and every resident is willing to sell.
Drive nine hours west of Brisbane and you’ll arrive in Cooladdi, a remote roadside town. Any new owner can expect to keep busy – working as a postie, publican, motelier, cook and shopkeeper.
Carol Yarrow and Jo Cornel, the town’s only residents, have put the town on the market with a going price of A$400,000 ($483,968), ABC News reported. The sale includes the Foxtrap Roadhouse and a four-bedroom house.
“Today, I did the mail run down to Big Creek, so that’s about a five-and-a-half-hour drive down there, mainly gravel road,” Yarrow told ABC News.
“Then just back here this afternoon to help run the shop, and tonight serve beers and food and whatever else is needed.”
Cooladdi qualifies as a town due to the post office that operates out of the roadhouse, according to the Guardian, giving it the postcode 4479.
The town was at its peak in the 1900s when its population topped 270, ABC News reported. Then the railway station closed and the population started declining.
Owner Jo Cornel (right) is ready to sell up after three years running the shop. Photo / Foxtrap Roadhouse Cooladdi
Yarrow said the town sees lots of people come through every day.
“We sit around and have chinwags with all the locals on a Friday night. And then you have regulars pop in on their way through from Quilpie to Charleville.
“So you get to know a lot of people.”
Charleville Real Estate principal agent Becky Jeisman told ABC News that properties like this don’t come up often.
“It’s just filled with everything you could possibly want and has so much character,” Jeisman said.
“It’s a profitable little enterprise with all of its income streams. And even in the quieter off-season, the mail run carries you through.”
Although the town only has two people, plenty come through for hospitality. Photo / Foxtrap Roadhouse Cooladdi
Yarrow and Cornel have been running the town for the past three years and now want to live in Brisbane to be closer to family, according to The Guardian.
“I’ve just turned 70 and finding I’m getting a bit old for it,” Yarrow said.
“There was sort of a fear of it dying, but we were able to get it up and going and keep it going.
“Let’s hope somebody else can get in and do the same thing.”
