Calperum Station

North of Renmark the orchards stop and Calperum begins: 242,800 hectares of mallee, dunes and Murray floodplain that ran sheep for more than a century before being bought for conservation. Managed by the Australian Landscape Trust, Calperum and its neighbour Taylorville Station form the heart of the Riverland Biosphere Reserve, and the station's creeks and lagoons make up roughly a third of the internationally significant Riverland Ramsar wetland system.

For visitors, Calperum is the Riverland at its wildest. Designated campsites sit along the floodplain creeks — red gums, black box, prolific birdlife — and beyond them the mallee runs north toward the horizon. This is genuine outback travel: no shops, no fuel, bring your own water, and contact the station office before you come, because access and campsites are arranged ahead and tracks close after rain.

It rewards the effort like nowhere else in the region. Kayak a quiet creek at dawn, watch regent parrots flash through the river gums, and at night get the kind of sky that made Big Bend by Night famous downstream. For more of the region's drylands, see mallee country.