With its location on the back road to anywhere 400km beyond Bourke - a town which is an Australian synonym for the back of beyond - the Family Hotel is none too cool.
It offers VB signs, white plastic chairs on the peppercorn tree-shaded veranda and a front-row view of the passing parade of dusty utes and 4WDs.
But don't underestimate what it has to offer. The cook can roast a roast, crumble an apple crumble and generally dish out anything that's good and wholesome. And owner Peter Petrovich makes sure he's on hand most of the time to keep the beer cool and the welcome warm.
There's a touch of bush culture here, too. The walls inside the pub are covered with murals - some of them worth a fortune.
Popular Aussie artist Clifton Pugh came to Tibooburra in 1960, befriended the publican and decided to do some high-class graffiti for him. Other artists such as Richard Armor, Russell Drysdale and Eric Minchen followed, and an Armor portrait of Pugh remains, valued, they say at close to $2 million - if it could be rolled up and taken away.
Most of the year the town (population 150 or so) just putters along and the drift of visitors stays manageable. But one weekend a year - a long one in October - the town hums. That's when the rodeo (said to be the best in the west) comes to town and the population soars, the pub roars, and locals live off the buzz for weeks.
And if you think living in Tibooburra is a picnic, remember that this is the place most Australians know only because it often stars on their TV's evening weather report as having the state's highest temperatures. It's doing it real tough, too, with the drought almost petrifying the already bone-dry land.
As far as isolated goes, how does 355km north of Broken Hill (the unofficial capital of the Outback), 1500km northwest of Sydney, and 900km from Adelaide sound? Even the indigenous locals can't have thought too highly of the place. Their name for it translates as "heaps of rocks".
Capital of Corner Country, they call it now.
In the 1840s, poor old Charles Sturt, the English explorer, and his companions, passed through this way, too, probably doubting their sanity. Sturt came dragging a 9m whaleboat on a wagon and was all prepared to tackle the vast inland sea when he found it, but sadly he abandoned his craft as well as the notion. A full-size replica of the boat is mounted in Pioneer Park on the outskirts of town, sailing incongruously above the parched plain.
A few decades later, the town had a brief fling with fame with the discovery of gold in 1881. A thousand miners arrived and, because of them, a post office, school and hospital were built. The hotel began in that era, too, of course, and over the years various artists visited this distant corner of the state adding those sometimes raunchy sketches to the hotel's walls. It's almost worth the trip just to see them.
The road to Tibooburra, whichever way you come at it, is a long, dry, dusty one. There are 'roos and wombats, saltbush and spinifex and hundreds of kilometres of red dirt. But under the peppercorn trees you can bet the beer is waiting and Peter has dusted off the welcome mat.
No doubt the hotel cook is just putting something delicious in the oven for dinner and Stretch, or someone like him, is waiting in the bar, more than ready to share a coldie and a yarn.
Tibooburra's not dead easy to get to, but it's a pretty hard place to leave.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Tibooburra is 1500km northwest of Sydney. Regional Express offers daily services to Broken Hill. Hire a care at Broken Hill and drive 355km to Tibooburra.
Survival tips: April to October are the best months to travel. Check travel conditions before driving and ensure you have a good map.
Attractions in the area include Olive Downs within Strut National Park, Sunset Hill Lookout and the Tibooburra School of Air.
Further information: See visitbrokenhill.com, tibooburra.org, rex.com.au and outback nsw.com.au. For information on Australia see australia.com.
