Ash, living out here and growing a mighty fine lawn (complements of very generous water usage rules), I can advise that you will have extreme difficulties in growing anything that will last without a good supply of regular water. Also, unless you have a large roo/rabbit proof fence, when everything else around the strip dies in the extreme summer heat, the roos/rabbits/wallabies/ferral pigs etc will gather en mass and eat your hard work down to the roots. You will also have the equivalent of landing in the grandstands of the MCG on a sunday afternoon!
The summer heat is just too extreme without continuous water out this way. I believe there is a strip down near where you talk of that uses a gravel of sorts, commissioned and built by the the then successful Eddie Groves or ABC childcare fame. It might be worth having a look at what he did.