If a bit of dust and outback tranquillity appeal, your dream job and lifestyle might be waiting at Birdsville.

Peter and Bronwynne Barnes have been in the outback town in south-west Queensland for about three decades "on and off" and are keen to ease back from their seven days a week workload.

For the past six years or so they have been running the roadhouse and say they are now keen to find another couple they can share the load with, who might ultimately want to take over.

Peter, known to all the locals as Barnesy, told 891 ABC Adelaide a wide range of skills would be a definite advantage.

"It just takes a bit of experience I think, to be able to fix a broad range of things on a broad range of vehicles. We get people out of the desert [who] manage to get themselves into a bit of strife one way or the other," he said.

"We get a vast range of breakdowns, [problems ranging from] trailers to springs to clutches to shockers, to bogged [vehicles].

"You never know what you're gonna wake up to every morning."

Barnesy said too great an attachment to city comforts would never work in the outback.

"[You need to be] open-minded, multi-skilled and love living in the bush," he said.

"Good mechanical skills would be good, and willing to live in the outback. We haven't got millions of facilities but we've got enough to survive."

Lifestyle reliant on teamwork

Bronwynne said she and Peter moved to Birdsville in the 1980s, stayed 12 years until a move to Papua New Guinea, then returned to Australia on a cattle station until her husband "persuaded" her they should move back to Birdsville.

Barnesy said running the roadhouse required good teamwork, as someone always had to be on hand especially when he was called out for emergency road service in the outback.

Birdsville: Dusty in the heat, but the outback also floods at other times. ( Ruth Doyle: User submitted )

"The other part of the couple thing is to look after the general store and serve the fuel, etcetera," he said.

"You eat, sleep and drink the job a bit when it's flat out — and in the summer months it's quieter and you get an opportunity to go away.

"[We are looking for] a good couple to share the load and maybe even take it on for themselves in time."

Birdsville's population swells during the cooler months as tourists tackle the Birdsville Track in huge numbers, but Barnesy said the heat of summer ensured it was quieter for those months.

He said apart from the tourist influx, many things had not changed for the outback town.

"[I was] the first bloke ever to set up a workshop in Birdsville and [there were] no tourists here [in the 1980s]," he said.

"There was 100 people living there then and I think there's probably 100 people living here now."