Mount Bryan East · AU

Sir Hubert Wilkins Homestead

On a quiet stretch of South Australian pastoral land near Mount Bryan East, a modest stone cottage marks the birthplace of one of the nation's most extraordinary adventurers. Sir Hubert Wilkins (1888–1958) — polar explorer, aviator, submariner, war photographer, scientist — drew his first breath in this humble homestead called Netfield. Today, the lovingly restored cottage invites visitors to step back into the world from which Wilkins launched a life of record-breaking feats: the first trans-Arctic flight, the first flight over Antarctica, and the first attempt to navigate a submarine beneath the polar ice cap. The homestead sits along the Dare's Hill Circuit Drive, a 91-kilometre self-guided loop that crosses Goyder's Line twice and reveals the raw beauty of South Australia's Mid North. Collect a key from the village of Hallett, wander through the stone rooms where a thirteen-year-old dreamer once grew up watching droughts reshape his landscape, and imagine how this unassuming cottage produced a man whose ashes would one day be scattered at the North Pole by a US Navy submarine.