'Dark-sky' tourism offers a way out of dark times for outback NT operators
The station is a pioneer of outback tourism in the Northern Territory but visitor numbers during the region's peak tourism season are down.
"It's been pretty ordinary. We certainly can't say it's been a good season at all," said Lyndee Severin, who owns and operates Curtin Springs Station alongside her husband Ashley.
Beef producers across the Northern Territory offer accommodation and tourist experiences to bolster their businesses when cattle prices are sluggish.
The region's highways have been packed with campervans and cars during mid-year school holidays.
But the NT tourism body says self-catered holidays and hotels are the popular options this season, while the stations and roadhouses stay quiet.
Even with a few extra visitors swinging by the station, Ms Severin said it was not enough to make up for losses across the rest of the year.
"Two weeks doesn't make a season," she said.
As the wet season turned dry in May, the forecast was for a bumper tourism season for the Northern Territory.
Tourism Top End general manager Sam Bennett said while some areas of the sector had boomed, regional businesses had struggled.
"It's actually pretty lumpy," she said.
"Some of the sectors are doing amazingly well, hotels are doing really well.
"The leisure sector is very slow, and that's traditionally what spends time and money in regions."
Situated 4 kilometres off the Queensland–Northern Territory border, the roadhouse and caravan park at the remote Tobermorey Station has become a key aspect of the business, helping support the property during the dry season.
However, manager Chloe Robertson said late rains that swept across the Barkly region and Central Australia in May caused road closures for the station, limiting access for visiting tourists.
"Usually the season starts here … around Easter, Easter weekend. However, this year, the roads were still closed from our wet season. So, it's been very quiet," she said.
"And we got an inch of rain, which put road closures in again, so it's been very quiet."
Agricultural tourism operators are now looking to the sky to help bring visitors back to the NT's most remote corners.
Dark-sky tourism is a growing trend in which destinations offer visitors a view of the night sky almost entirely untouched from artificial light, with the stars and Milky Way on full display.
Dark-sky tourism is a "huge, huge market", according to Ms Bennett.
Utilising the wide, expansive night-time skies seen in the Northern Territory, she said Tourism Top End was working closely with the pastoral industry to create new experiences for tourists, and opportunities for businesses.
Curtin Springs Station's massive outback skies are an asset Ms Severin hopes to tap in to.
"We're creating a space here at the homestead area for visitors who are staying with us to … find that quiet space to be able to explore that night sky," she said.
"So we're quite excited … about being able to offer that other opportunity for people to really experience the huge skies that we have both in the daylight and the night-time hours."
Ms Severin said they were looking ahead to the the 2028 total solar eclipse, which would draw thousands of astronomers to Australia.
"The sky – the night sky particularly – is something that you don't see everywhere," she said.
"And we get to experience it every day."
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