Here is the essential outback, the red heart of Australia, and a single road runs through it, as black and shiny as a strap of liquorice and as straight as a runway. “One day, quite wild, a plane did land on the road right outside”, says Mim Ward. “A little 4-seater, and the pilot just came in and sat with us until the weather lifted, then he took off again.”

Mim is manager of the astonishing Prairie Hotel at Parachilna – astonishing because Parachilna, with a population of 7 at the last count, is so far from anywhere at all it seems miraculous that it simply exists. Where could the clientele for a hotel and restaurant possibly come from, when Adelaide, the nearest city of any size, is 470km away? The traveller in the outback can be profoundly grateful to find any refuge whatsoever from the loneliness of the endless track and the burning sun, and turn a blind eye to a few shortcomings. But the Prairie Hotel, first licensed in 1876, is no raw outback beerstop, but, against all the odds, a true oasis of civilisation, gastronomy and comfort.

The original hotel front was completed in 1906, and it faces away from the road, so that you have to swing round the back to find the verandah and the bar. The first thing you now see, since local pastoralists (farmers) Ross and Jane Fargher took the place over in 1994, is the new wing, made of gleaming glass and Australia’s favourite building material – corrugated steel. The structure might almost be a new-millennium wool shed, and the integration between the old and new wings has won praise from Australia’s Royal Institute of Architects. The Farghers have contrived to make the extension blend into the landscape while providing a high degree of comfort and a concern for the local ecology. Most of the materials are recycled, such as the Mount Gambier stone used in the mezzanine and corridors, and the oregon and Jarrah timber rescued from the old wool stores at Port Adelaide. Energy-efficient techniques are ingenious, too. The walls are made of sand-filled blocks, which provide good sound insulation as well as protecting from heat. and roof-mounted solar panels minimise the need for other sources of power. When yours is the only building in sight, its looks are scrutinised.

Looking is important at the Prairie Hotel. Guests at Parachilna are encouraged to go up to the balcony above the mezzanine at sunset with a schooner of West End draught ale or a glass of Clare Valley riesling, and look out in wonder. Far off to the east, the Flinders Ranges rear up abruptly, shifting to purple and mauve, while on the horizon the sun goes down like a blazing ball to bury itself in the sand by Lake Torrens, that vast inland sea.

Meanwhile, the bar is filling up. Where do they all come from, these people? Some are farmhands or shearers, for this is the country of vast cattle and sheep stations. Because the land offers so little grazing, you may need to allow 15 acres for a sheep, so mustering over thousands of kilometres is done by motorbike or aeroplane. Others at the bar are backpackers and campers, delighted to have found a centre of conviviality after nights out in the wilds. And if you had been there a few summers ago, you might have rubbed shoulders or shared a cigarette with Kate Winslet or Harvey Keitel, as the film Holy Smoke was shot on location here. Not least among those who cross the flaming desert to reach the Prairie Hotel are the gourmet travellers – people who come to try for themselves the famous Flinders Feral food that is making such a name for Darren Brooks (call me Bart).

A fan of The Simpsons, hence his nickname, Bart trained with one of Australia’s greatest chefs, Adelaide-based Cheong Lieuw, and after working in both Adelaide and the Clare Valley, drove up to Parachilna on a whim, after his girlfriend spotted an ad in the paper. “Basically,” he says, “ I thought I’d be coming up to this nice little town with a population of seven – nice and relaxing, home by 9.30 sort of thing.” How wrong can you be?  The place is buzzing every night, and his fruit, veg, meat and fish man, Tuckie, 6’5” tall and an old shearer, is kept busy bringing him the freshest food – principally up from Adelaide.

From the start, the Prairie Hotel concentrated on South Australian produce, and Bart has become something of an expert on native and feral foods. “When I first came up for the job, they asked me to carve an emu for them. I’d never seen one before, so I started carving it like a big turkey, which was a bit weird, because the muscles are different.” Nowadays, he makes short work of such exotica. Freshwater crayfish or yabbies, locally known as maron, are great favourites. “I pan-fry the yabby – I like the big ones with lots of meat, along with native lemon myrtle, garlic and butter, then I serve a big mountain of salt-and-pepper yabbies in their red shells.”

Where most chefs dip into recipe books, Bart uses Wild Food Plants of Australia, by Tim Low. Inside, under the chapter heading Bush Tucker, it lists scores of edible plants that formed an important part of the aboriginal diet in different parts of Australia, and from this he draws some of his inspiration. The menu at Parachilna, both in the bar and in the restaurant,  changes all the time, but the use of acacia, or wattleseed, quandong (a native peach with a big stone and a thin layer of intensely flavoured flesh), wild orange and lime, and bush tomatoes are fairly constant. The bar menu might offer a feral antipasto of smoked kangaroo, camel mettwurst (camel, according to Bart, has the texture of young beef, but with more sinew), emu prosciutto, roasted and marinated vegetables, bush tomato relish, goat’s curd and bush tomato rolled bread. Leathery old shearers are prepared to have a go, even though they’ve been a lot more used to eating beefsteaks, beer damper (a kind of yeastless bread) and chook’s (hen’s) eggs.

Unsurprisingly, word has got around that this remote hotel is the wildest place to go for a special occasion. A prominent winegrower from the Clare Valley turned up with a party of eight to celebrate his 40th birthday or, rather, the third day of festivities. Bigger groups might take advantage of the woolshed at Nilpena Station, where Ross and Jane Fargher guarantee a natural dance floor and spectacular night time light show.

Living in the heart of the outback presents plenty of challenges, and there’s a constant need to be vigilant when the temperatures climb. You have to be sure of good supplies of water and petrol if you’re going anywhere, and when Jane drives the children to school, it’s a 130km round trip every day.

Nevertheless, Jane and Ross, Mim and Bart all reckon you get your reward when sitting by the gum tree, looking out for the odd feral donkey or the green flash of a Port Lincoln parrot, wondering just who will turn up next to share the Parachilna experience. The best advice I can give you, sport, is to jump into your strides (that goes for sheilas, too) and get down there, faster than a shearer can empty a tinnie.

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