By GREG ANSLEY
BRUCE - The hamlet of Bruce sits as close to the middle of nowhere as anywhere can be, surrounded by tens of thousands of hectares of arid red South Australian soil and low scrub running to infinity.
With the quirk of British humour, the internet and the romance of
isolation, selling this collection of railway station, cottage, derelict town hall and crumbling pub boarded shut with corrugated iron is easier than finding it.
Which suits expatriate British owner Tony Gwynn-Jones and his wife Maggie perfectly.
The Gwynn-Jones first discovered the ruins of Bruce in 1987, snapping up three-quarters of what remained and renovating a bluestone cottage as a weekend retreat from their clothing business in Adelaide, 400km or so to the south.
Now, after "retiring" there in 1992 and restoring the magnificent Victorian station as a guest house, the couple have placed it on the international market so they can move to a quieter life in the Clare Valley, where they already have property.
Finding prospective buyers for a A$310,000 ($352,300) speck on the Australian map, populated by just four people and three dogs, has been remarkably easy. Britain's BBC and Sunday Telegraph found the blend of Outback, Bruce - a name that became notorious in Britain through Monty Python's Australian satires - and an expatriate British gentleman irresistible, pumping interest in Europe.
Gwynn-Jones has also been emailing details to interested parties as far afield as the United States.
"Where else in the world," he asks, "can you look out any window and see - nothing?"
Nothing, there is in plenty.
When the colony of South Australia was sending hundreds of families into the harsh ochre interior on "square-mile" grants, planners planted Bruce 50km or so west of Port Augusta, beside a railway line linking Alice Springs to Adelaide.
The town thrived for a while, with a population of about 100 at its peak, a Methodist church, the pub, a school, a town hall and a collection of cottages. But most of the farms failed, farmers walked off the land, and in the early 1960s the last train passed through.
Now simply finding Bruce is a test of Outback navigation. In the village of Quorn, the home of the Pichi Richi Railway northwest of Port Augusta, locals point you down the road to Wilmington with the advice to take the first turn left after the Itali Itali memorial (a school that survived from 1880 to 1945) and the cairn remembering the Richmond Creek Methodist church, which lasted until 1954.
If you follow these instructions you arrive at Ian Rogers' homestead. He's a good bloke who was in the last class to be taught at Bruce - in the railway station, from 1958 to 1962 - and can point you to the right turning, opposite a dead Kangaroo whose paws eerily point in the correct direction.
The road to Bruce is a dirt track with a couple of tricky forks that test patience and, if guessed wrongly, quite possibly survival skills as well. Gwynn-Jones equips his guests with precise details specifying corners, forks and junctions to the exact fraction of a kilometre.
On each side of the track the district's history is marked by the skeletons of the original homesteaders' abandoned homes.
Bruce itself sits on a low rise above plains sweeping to the distant Flinders Range. Clint Eastwood could appear in poncho and six-guns and look right at home. That is, until you turn left past the old pub with its corrugated iron shutters warning visitors to keep out, and arrive at Bruce Station, complete with original sign and a short run of tracks with a jigger mounted on them.
Known locally as the Baron of Bruce, Gwynn-Jones, a tall, white-haired Briton from the north of England, is busy on the email with prospective buyers, but takes a break for a quick chat.
When he started, the station was a wreck, a tree growing through the roof, only three doors in the entire building, no windows, and cattle wandering through it. Now it is back to its Victorian splendour, with the stationmaster's quarters converted to guest rooms and the old waiting room with welcoming fire and a table that will seat 12 people tonight, from Britain and the US.
"We sit around the table at night, resolving the problems of the world, and nobody listens," Gwynn-Jones says.
But in the middle of nowhere, with a town that plenty of people seem to want to buy, who cares?
By GREG ANSLEY
BRUCE - The hamlet of Bruce sits as close to the middle of nowhere as anywhere can be, surrounded by tens of thousands of hectares of arid red South Australian soil and low scrub running to infinity.
With the quirk of British humour, the internet and the romance of
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