The Big Stubby.

The story

Larrimah is a town that has been emptying for nearly a century. It began as a railway town in the 1930s — the northern terminus of the North Australia Railway, with hundreds of workers, a pub, a railway hotel, and the busy infrastructure of a Top End railhead. When the railway closed in 1976, Larrimah began its slow demographic collapse. By the early 2010s the population was 11. By the 2021 census, after the disappearance of long-time resident Paddy Moriarty in 2017 and various subsequent departures, it had dropped to a single person. The Big Stubby outside the Pink Panther Larrimah Hotel is the icon of that vanishing town.

The Larrimah Hotel — painted distinctively pink with Pink Panther murals, and informally known as "the Pink Panther" — has been the town's social and commercial centre for decades. The Big Stubby was installed outside the pub at some point in the 1990s or early 2000s (records vary) as a roadside attraction for Stuart Highway travellers needing a reason to stop. For most of its life, the Stubby served exactly that purpose: a quirky photo stop, a marker that you were nearly at Mataranka thermal pools, a roadside curiosity.

"Larrimah is a town that has been emptying for nearly a century. The Big Stubby is its icon." — On the Big Stubby and the town it represents

Then on 16 December 2017, Patrick "Paddy" Moriarty — a 70-year-old Irish-born long-time Larrimah resident — disappeared from the town, along with his red kelpie Kellie. His ute was found near his home; his belongings were untouched; his neighbours were the last to see him. Despite extensive police searches and ongoing investigation, neither Paddy nor Kellie has ever been found. The 2018 ABC podcast Lost in Larrimah, by journalists Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, was a Walkley Award-winning investigation into the disappearance and the strange dynamics of the town. The 2020 book of the same name expanded the investigation, and a 2022 documentary covered the case in screen form. The disappearance remains officially unsolved.

Since 2017, the Big Stubby has carried weight it never originally intended. Visitors stop not just for the kitsch but to see the town that the podcast described, to drink at the Pink Panther where Paddy drank every night, and to think about what happens when a community of 11 people loses one of its members in unresolved circumstances. The Stubby is still a giant beer bottle outside a pub — but it's now also a marker for one of Australia's most-discussed missing persons cases of the 21st century.

Visiting the Big Stubby

The Big Stubby stands outside the Pink Panther Larrimah Hotel on the Stuart Highway, in the centre of Larrimah township (such as it is). The pub is a working business — typically open from morning through late evening, serving meals and cold beer to Stuart Highway travellers. Free to view the Stubby at any hour. Most people stop for an hour or two — Stubby photo, pub lunch or beer, and the surreal experience of being in one of the loneliest pub stops in Australia.

About Lost in Larrimah

The 2018 ABC podcast Lost in Larrimah (also released as a book and later documentary) is essential listening for anyone visiting the town. Journalists Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson spent extended time in the town investigating Paddy Moriarty's disappearance, interviewing the (then) ten remaining residents, and uncovering a network of long-running interpersonal feuds, simmering grievances, and the strange social isolation of an end-stage outback town. The podcast won a Walkley Award (Australian journalism's highest honour) in 2019 and has been credited with sustaining national interest in the case.

The podcast — and the broader story — is a strange thing to think about while standing under a giant fibreglass beer bottle. But it's what most visitors are thinking about anyway.

Trivia worth knowing

• Larrimah began as the northern terminus of the North Australia Railway in the 1930s.
• The railway closed in 1976; the town has been depopulating ever since.
• Current population: 1 (as of the most recent census).
• The Pink Panther Larrimah Hotel is painted in distinctive pink with Pink Panther murals on the walls.
• The Big Stubby was installed outside the pub in the 1990s or early 2000s.
• Patrick "Paddy" Moriarty (70) disappeared from Larrimah on 16 December 2017 along with his dog Kellie. Neither has been found.
• The 2018 podcast Lost in Larrimah by Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson won a Walkley Award in 2019.
• A book version (2020) and documentary (2022) followed.
• The case remains officially unsolved.