The tiny south-west Queensland town of Eulo is about as unlikely a spot for a beauty spa as you could imagine.
But one former farmer has capitalised on a growing interest in natural beauty products to attract hundreds of international visitors each year to his mineral artesian mud baths.
Ian and Nan Pike gave up growing dates several years ago, and they have never looked back.
Mr Pike has built up a collection of vintage bath tubs, which he has restored and installed in the bush setting for visitors to relax in under the stars.
Tubs are filled with artesian bore water before the mud is added.
"We separate the fine clays and we put a decent amount of that in the tubs, and then you fill that up with hot or cold water, whatever they like," Mr Pike said.
"You soak in that for about half an hour, absorb the minerals through the skin, then they apply the body pack — which tightens up your skin — and when you take that off it cleans the skin.
"They come out pretty much wrinkle free, I guess," he said.
The mud baths have attracted visitors from all over the world, but it has taken local residents longer to appreciate the fine mud on their doorstep.
"The locals still think I'm crazy," Mr Pike said.
European travellers are the most devoted of Mr Pike's clientele, but visitors have also travelled from Asia and around Australia.
New Zealand is also famed for its mineral mud baths, but Mr Pike said visitors from across the ditch tended to be surprised by what they found in Eulo.
"They're a bit pinged off because they reckon we've got better mud than they have. It has no sulphur in it, it doesn't smell," he said.
"The clay is that good it takes the bend out of corrugated iron."
Eulo is a grazing town more than 800 kilometres west of Brisbane and is now home to just 100 people.
Mr Pike said the consolidation of farming land had had a big impact on the local community in recent years.
"We had a stage here where we lost one family out of the district every year for 11 years straight," he said.
Mr Pike said diversification was the key to strengthening small rural communities like Eulo.
"People are starting to go more into farm stays and that sort of thing, which has its place," he said.
"If you can get people into your area and spending an extra couple of days here, they go away with a different impression.
Mr Pike does not hesitate when asked if he preferred mud baths to farming.
"Whether it rains or not, we've still got the mud," he said.
