Retirement looks different for everybody. It might conjure up images of moving abroad, spending time with the grandkids, volunteering or diving into hobbies. For many Australians, the retirement dream involves selling the empty nest and becoming grey nomads, travelling around the country in a campervan.
But Andrew and Ursula Keese are taking it one step further. The retired couple has been on the road since 2019 with a personal mission: to visit every pub in Australia.
“It was my idea,” Ursula tells Broadsheet. “Crazy when I think about it now.”
Andrew continues: “We had so many people tell us there’s just no way, that it’s impossible to do it. But just because nobody’s ever done it, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. There’s a first for everything.”
Broadsheet sat down with the duo at pub number 2585, Mayfair Lane, described by Andrew as an “awesome pub in West Perth”. The “why” of their pilgrimage was obvious: cruising around Australia sinking drinks with your significant other is undoubtedly a good idea. We wanted to know about the “how”. In the ever-changing hospitality landscape, how can these two (for lack of a better word) boomers find every pub in Australia?
In the initial stages of planning their pursuit, the couple used Pub-lication, a catalogue of Aussie pubs, only to find it hadn’t been updated in over a decade. Instead, they went old-school, cross-checking government websites and spending hours mapping out their stops to ensure no pub went unvisited.
There are no hard and fast rules to the decade-long pub crawl, but the pair has three guiding principles: the venues must have a hotel or tavern license, the couple have at least one drink at each place (“why would you go to a pub and not have a drink?”), and document the visit with a photo uploaded to their dedicated Instagram page. Covering at least three venues each day, the adventurous pair has clocked 2904 pub visits at the time of writing, and should hit the big 3000 in Albany before the end of the year.
According to the Keeses, the recipe for a perfect pub is simple.
“You need a good publican, for a start. That’s essential. We went to one shitty looking pub in New South Wales, parked the motorhome and the publican was sitting out the front with his patrons drinking a beer. He saw us coming and asked us what we do. Straight away, he got us behind the bar and said, ‘Listen, shut the fuck up everybody, these legends are doing every pub’ and everyone cheered. We felt like rockstars,” says Andrew.
While pokies are a no-no, “really good staff, great locals that want to have a chat, community and live music” are musts Andrew insists. “We’ve had so many pubs tell us that, ‘since Covid we’ve stopped live music’, but Covid finished years ago. It feels like an excuse.”
Adelaide’s General Havelock is a favourite, as is Clancy’s Fish Pub in Fremantle, but more often than not it’s the thirst-thwarting pubs of tiny towns that tick all the boxes, like Queensland’s Nindigully Pub. The long-standing venue possesses the inimitable ambience that many inner-city boozers attempt to replicate, but to no avail. “They’ve got to have character and atmosphere. We like it a bit dingy,” says Andrew.
It hasn’t always been easy. In the Windsor motorhome they’ve dubbed Pubsy, the Keeses have driven through creek beds, along flooded dirt roads, endured standstill traffic and navigated a global pandemic – not to mention motorhome repairs – all to get to the pub.
But for the positive pair, their drinks – typically a Guinness, stout or Espresso Martini for Ursula and local beer from the tap or a gin and tonic for Andrew – are always half full. “It took us eight hours to do 200 kilometres once, but we made it. We didn’t even do a tire,” says Andrew.
Five years into their ten-year mission, they’ve now got every pub in Queensland, South Australia, Northern Territory and the bulk of Western Australia under their belt (“we’re two years ahead of schedule!”). The pair has developed a bit of a reputation. Eagle-eyed publicans anticipate their arrival, usher them in and eagerly pour them each a drink on the house.
Over the final few weeks of the year, their followers will see them continue their journey throughout WA before returning to Sydney for a brief break from the pub pursuit. Early next year Andrew, Ursula and Pubsy are heading off to Victoria.
“We’re going to do our 4000th pub in Victoria, 5000th in Tasmania, and then eventually we want to finish at the Rocks in New South Wales,” says Andrew.
They’ve got nothing but time, the open road, and thousands of pints ahead of them.
