Life on an Outback Cattle Station and the Utopia Aboriginal Artistic Community
Located in Central Australia, MacDonald Downs is a 2067 square kilometre (half a million acres) working cattle station, located 285 kilometres north east of Alice Springs. The Chalmers family has been running cattle in this area since the early 1920s, when it was !rst settled by pioneers Charles and Cora Chalmers. Charlie and Sonja Chalmers are opening their home and station for Epicurious guests to experience life on a remote Central Australian cattle station and meet Utopian artists painting on the station grounds, where Sonja’s Eastern Desert Art Gallery is based. We also visit the original historic homestead on the adjoining property and take a stunning bush walk in the recently classi!ed National Parks and Wildlife Mac and Rose Chalmers Conservation Park at Tower Rock.
The traditional custodians of this area, the Alyawarr people still live at Utopia which neighbours the property. The Chalmers’ relationship with the local Aboriginal people extends back three generations with many of the artists who live at Utopia today having been born and grown up on MacDonald Downs alongside Charlie and Sonja’s family.
Amongst the Alyawarr people today there are many extremely talented artists who regularly paint for Eastern Desert Art. One of the most celebrated Australian artists of the 20th century Emily Kame Kngwarreye grew up in this area. Her family and their relatives have carried on with this work and an exciting new generation of artists is now painting and attracting international interest.
You can watch the artists paint under their gum leaf thatched roof bough shelter in a natural bush setting. Their families often join them and their day is spent painting, cooking roo tails and meeting and chatting with people from the surrounding communities.
Discover what it’s like living and working on this remote outback station where mustering is by helicopter and isolation is part of everyday life. Meet Aboriginal painters while they work on their canvases in a relaxed outdoor environment. Learn about the history of the station and the interpretation of the land and its bush tucker by local bushman and former pastoralist Cameron Chalmers who was reared on MacDonald Downs. Enjoy delicious picnic lunches in the bush and share delightful dinners with the Chalmers family in their lovely homestead, dining on organic produce from the station.
