22/04/2025
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Rex Ellis on Easter Sunday.
Rex’s influence on outback tourism in Australia is difficult to overstate. As the country’s longest-serving outback guide, with a remarkable 60 years of experience, he was undeniably a pioneer, blazing trails in countless areas and inspiring generations of explorers, travellers, and camel trekkers.
A true bushman, raconteur, ornithologist, boat captain, cameleer, and author of eight books, Rex Ellis was also a master storyteller, with more than a few legendary yarns, some of them perhaps a little too good to fact-check.
Yes, the wiry little bushman.
Long before “adventure tourism” was even a term, Rex was already out there doing exactly that and doing it his way. In the early days, he’d just head off and make it happen, sorting out the legalities later (if at all).
Often, his bold and imaginative ideas were a few dunes ahead of a workable business model, but that never seemed to matter. What mattered was that he gave it a go.
And no matter which trip you did with Rex, one thing was certain: you were in for an adventure.
Rex’s adventures were the real, fair dinkum kind, dare I say far removed from the increasingly homogenised offerings that sometimes pass as adventure tourism today. His journeys were true adventures not because they were packaged that way, but because they hadn’t been done before, or not for many decades.
• Plan and execute the first ever commercial vehicle crossing of the Simpson Desert? No worries.
• Take a fleet of tinnies down a flooded Cooper Creek? Why not?
• Launch a Trans-Australia Camel Expedition to mark the Bicentenary? Yep, let’s go.
With Rex, adventure wasn’t just a concept - it was a way of life.
And we mustn’t forget his late wife, Patti, who was by his side on many of those epic journeys. And when she wasn’t, she was holding down the base camp while Rex disappeared into the bush for weeks or even months at a time. That was the deal when you signed up with Rex. Patti was part of the team, whether in the field or back at base.
But perhaps his most significant legacy, at least in my view, was launching Australia’s first commercial camel expedition, a groundbreaking journey across the Simpson Desert in 1976, which fittingly concluded outside the Birdsville Hotel, which he owned at the time.
Forty-nine years ago, there was little public interest in Australia’s rich cameleering heritage. The knowledge of working with traditional pack camels had all but vanished, as the original Afghan cameleers were reaching old age, and Cecil Madigan’s 1939 Simpson Desert Expedition had largely faded from memory.
But in early 1976, Rex acquired his first camels and then had an idea: to cross the Simpson Desert. He had little experience and no clear blueprint, but he sought out the wisdom of old cameleers and pieced together what knowledge he could.
The expedition was a success, and from it, the Outback Camel Company was born. We’re now looking ahead to our 50th anniversary in 2026, carrying forward the legacy of that bold first crossing.
That legacy lives on. Outback Camel Company remains the only operator continuing Rex’s ethos of true desert exploration - the last team of desert-trekking pack camels still active in Australia, 49 years later, and now under my stewardship.
And from that, Australian Desert Expeditions was born in 2007.
Working with pack camels in Australia is a niche pursuit, but one with deep roots stretching back 165 years to the era of Burke and Wills. Today, there are only three camel operators in the country who regularly use traditional pack camels, and all three of us have, at some point, worked with or learned directly from Rex.
Since 1976, OCC has trained dozens upon dozens of cameleers, some of whom have gone on to launch their own outback ventures. Rex’s influence runs deep across the landscape of Outback Australian tourism and cameleering.
My first camel expedition was with Rex. In the years that followed, we became business partners for four years, during which I learned the many intricacies required to navigate the complexities of desert exploration.
Truly, every cameleer in Australia, whether working in the desert or by the coast, owes Rex Ellis a great debt. For his courage, foresight, grit, and sheer determination to give it a go.
The phrase “the end of an era” gets used often, but in Rex’s case, it genuinely fits. Rex Ellis was old school, willing to take bold risks and just get out there, trusting in his wits, experience, and a deep love for the Australian Outback.
His legacy lives on in the landscapes he helped others discover, and in the spirit of adventure he embodied so completely.
And now, in a moment of almost poetic timing, as the Cooper Creek floods the northeast of his beloved South Australia in what may be the biggest inundation in 50 years, I can’t help but imagine Rex readying his tinny, with his Jack Russell Terrier by his side, setting off on his last great adventure, just as he always did.
My condolences to his daughters Georgi and Katherine, and partner Claire.
Maxwell Rex Ellis 1942 - 2025
Andrew Harper OAM
