Mataranka to Threeways Roadhouse, NT

27/1/2019

Larrimah

Driving through or past Larrimah however you’d like to approach it is one of those ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ type of towns, located about 80kms south of Mataranka the town of twelve now eleven people has a pub (of course if does) and a house advertising homemade pies. On our way north to Darwin we pulled over in front of the pie selling house, lured by the audacious signs made from what appeared to be cardboard with hand painted letters that tempted us to try the ‘best pies in town’… The café/store/house known as Fran’s Devonshire Tea House, appeared however to be closed, so disappointed we got back into Cherry and continued our journey but not before noticing another sign advertising that the pub also sold the best pies in town. This sign erected on the other side of the road opposite the pie selling house was accompanied by a newer looking placard, a missing person sign. Intrigued we Googled ‘missing person Larrimah’ to discover the twelfth member of the tiny community had gone missing two years earlier in December 2017… dun dun duuun!

Paddy Moriarty, aged 70 and his dog Kellie, were last seen leaving the Larrimah Hotel on a quad bike at dusk on 16th December 2017. They have not been seen since and their disappearance remains unsolved. In 2018 journalists Kylie Stevenson and Caroline Graham created a six-episode podcast called, Lost in Larrimah, which became the basis for a book, Larrimah, released in 2021. We downloaded the pod and listened intently to the intriguing story of this tiny town and the secrets harboured beneath.

On our way south, as we passed back through Larrimah we didn’t attempt to stop again at Fran’s Devonshire Tea House, we expected it would again be closed and, upon listening to the pod suspected it hadn’t been opened for a while. A feud with Paddy her closest neighbour who lived directly opposite, had Fran pinned as the number one suspect in his disappearance, which sparked rumours her pies contained the meat of the missing man!