View allAll Photos Tagged sheepstation
It is late afternoon near Licola in the North Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, and this view follows the Macalister River as it meanders its way south through the mountains.
The river is reflecting the blue of the overhead sky and in the dead centre of this photo, on the green pasture, there are eight or more white cockatoos which had flown directly overhead as I set up and I watched them land. You always know when cockatoos are about because of their raucous call. At least 25 cattle can be seen grazing on the rich fertile river flats - the black dots on the green pasture.
This is part of the 10,000 acres that make up Glenfalloch Station which runs both cattle and sheep and which has extensive frontage to the Macalister River.
View from Norwood Shearing Shed now quietly waiting for the wildlife to take over residence...
Textures: thank you Angelique and anji one
IMG_7803
Yabba is the name of a number of geographical features in southeast Queensland: a river, a major waterfall, a road, a street, a valley, a range, a mountain and a forest. However, it originates from an aboriginal name for this flower and the deciduous tree that bears the flowers.
A 19th century grazier, Alexander Swanson, took up land on a plateau about 120 kms NNW of Brisbane, and in inquiring of local indigenous men of the Baiyambora clan, what the name of the distinctive and attractive tree was, he was told "Yabba". He thus named his sheepstation, "Yabba". In the early years, there were various spellings of the word such as Yabber, Yapper and Yappa, but as B and P are not differentiated in their language this is understandable. The name became fixed as "Yabba". As Swanson's "Yabba" was sited beside an unnamed river, the name was applied to it and its valley, and the track from "Yabba" to "Imbil", the next station 45 kms downstream, became the Yabba Road. Over the 175 years since Swanson took up his "run", the property has progressively been broken up into several grazing properties and much of his run is now either national park or state forest. As a result of family inheritance "Yabba" has been divided into "Yabba" and "Old Yabba", the latter containing the site of Swanson's original station.
The Yabba tree, Brachychiton discolor, is a unique tree. It is an Australian native that is deciduous shedding its leaves in mid-summer. Further, when in flower during the period when it lacks leaves, the flowers drop from the tree around the end of each day, and each morning a new flush of flowers appear. As it grows in riverine forests, its fallen flowers are often seen floating on the stream. In this photo, the Yabba flowers are floating on a tributary of Yabba Creek.
Walk 47/100 Sheepstation Creek Conservation Park, Queensland. Now surrounded by suburbia, this park protects a small area of the original bushland and is home for a large number of bird species and wildlife. Although somewhat overgrown with weed infestation, it provides a pleasant opportunity for walking amidst a variety of vegetation.
Eopsaltria australis chrysorrhoa - North-eastern Yellow Robin
Sheepstation Creek Campground
Border Ranges National Park
North Coast region
New South Wales Australia #89
I noticed this was a "station" on the old railway to Dirranbandi. It's actually a sheep station and these are the shearing sheds I believe. The railway and siding ran right by the front door between where I am standing and the fence of the property.
Rosebank.
The first white men to traverse the district were overlanders with flocks of sheep or cattle from NSW. One of their routes was to cross the Murray near Blanchetown and drive their flocks up the Marne River valley and into the Adelaide Hills. The first lessee of the district was George Melrose who took out a leasehold circa 1842. He established his homestead at Rosebank, east of Mt Pleasant in that year with his leasehold covering much of the land east of Mt Pleasant to the South Rhine (now Marne) River. He explored parts of SA for an outback station and liked the Lake Victoria country north of Renmark. When he married Euphemia Thomson in 1847 he took her to Lake Victoria for their honeymoon and she was the first white woman to visit such country. He probably had a simple cottage in the early years before he built a grand stone homestead at Rosebank around 1858. He acquired more runs in the north of SA, at Lake Victoria and at Franklin Harbour and Ulooloo. At a later stage in 1904 he built a grand stone shearing shed which is now heritage listed. He was undoubtedly a good employer for his workmen stayed for decades. Eight of his employees worked for him for between 30 and 50 years. George Melrose senior died at Rosebank in 1894 at the age of 87 years. He had had thirteen children. The Rosebank run, then freehold land was inherited by his third son Robert T. Melrose (1862-1945) who was born at Rosebank and managed it from 1896 until 1945. One of George and Euphemia’s daughters Elisabeth Melrose (1853 – 1945) married John Murray and they had a son named Sir John Stanley Murray. This grandson of George Melrose took over the property in 1946 after acquiring it from two of his uncles and he managed it until 1971. Sir John Stanley Murray (1884-1971) who was born on 27 March 1884 at Rosebank lived on the property and his managers were responsible for its development as a leading Aberdeen Angus stud. Sir John Stanley Murray’s daughter Alison Melrose Murray married Ian McLachlan (1908-1995) in June 1936. The three families of Melrose, Murray and McLachlan all have prominent headstones in the Mt Pleasant and Mt Crawford cemeteries. After Sir John Murray’s death in 1971 Rosebank passed to Angas McLachlan a son of Alison and Ian McLachlan who was born in 1944. His brother Ian, born in 1936 was the federal MP and Cabinet Minister in federal parliament from 1990 to 1998. The McLachlans purchased the Springfield House and estate near Williamstown in 1957. This historic house, Springfield House was built in 1841 for John Warren who took up land there circa 1840. Back at Rosebank in 2018 Will McLachlan and his family moved into the main house and took up the management role of the estate. Among the buildings on the property are accommodation cottages and the 1904 woolshed. At its peak 27,000 sheep a year were shorn in this shearing shed. Rosebank is still a Merino stud and its flock came from the Murray Merino bred by their relatives. Rosebank is also known for its beef production.
Zoothera lunulata lunulata - South-eastern Bassian Thrush adult
Sheep Station Creek
Border Ranges National Park
North Coast Region
New South Wales Australia #134 #121
A fascinating story of pioneering, hardship, drought and tragedy in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia.
Info courtesy of
Eopsaltria australis chrysorrhoa - North Eastern Yellow Robin
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
Zoothera lunulata lunulata - South-eastern Bassian Thrush
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
Malurus lamberti lamberti - Central East Coast Variegated Fairy-wren - male
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges NP
North Coast Region
New South Wales Australia
Acanthiza pusilla pusilla - South-eastern Brown Thornbill
The image is bit soft with too low a shutter speed. This is the best of three.
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
Sony A7r2
Zeiss ZE Planar T* 50mm F/1.4
ISO 125 | 50mm | F13 | 2.5 sec
12 Shot Panorama
It is amazing when you are set up at a cracker location and the elements all come together.
Had to capture this way as well the sky was incredible..
The Sunflowers all keen for the sun to rise.
Instagram @johnarmytage
Ptilonorynchus violaceus violaceus - Southern Satin Bowerbird adult male
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
North Coast Region
New South Wales Australia
Malurus cyaneus cyanochlamys - Northern Superb Fairy-wren - male
Roadside
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
Sunset near Chowilla Creek. The previous shot is close to here but looking East at sunset and only 10 minutes apart from this shot..
The trees are Eucalyptus largiflorens, or black box, a species of Eucalyptus which is endemic to Australia..
Muehlenbeckia florulenta, in the foreground commonly known as Lignum. This is all clay floodplain area.
A shearing shed was constructed in the 1870's of timber (local pine) and iron on Chowilla station.
In 1881, 70250 sheep were shorn. This included sheep from Calperum and Boundary Run. The tally was achieved in a climate where there were no rabbits, few kangaroos and no goats. The shearing shed is still in use for some shearing and crutching. The quarters were updated in the 1930's and are available for hire.
Woorooma, Moulamein, NSW (ABCTV VICTORIAN viewing area).
Woorooma is a grazing property on the Edward River located on the Pretty Pine Road about 16 km ESE from Moulamein. The southern boundary is the Edward River and the property extends to the Billabong Creek to the north (the confluence of the Billabong and the Edward is in Moulamein).
The original property and homestead now belong to the Gorey family.
Some of you may have heard of Confest, an alternative lifestyle festival; it owns a former part of the greater Woorooma closer to Moulamein arising from a subdivision some years ago.
Sericornis frontalis tweedi - Central east Coast White-browed Scrubwren
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
is quite a remote place.. Lake Coleridge, a beautiful recreational area. ca 2 hours from Christchurch. in pioneer days it took 3 days to reach the blue but icy cold waters as you see here, is the runoff from the surrounding mountains and is then chaneled into the hydro powerstation. the area around the lake is used as sheepstation..huge sheepstation
Kanyaka Homestead.
This pastoral leasehold run was established in 1852 by Hugh Proby who disappeared shortly afterwards whilst returning from a visit to his Pekina Run near Orroroo. This was one of the very first leaseholds in the Flinders Ranges. The next leaseholder John Phillips (with Alexander Grant) had the many fine stone buildings erected in the late 1850s. It was a large and prosperous run except during drought years and provided employment for 70 men and their families. The drought in the 1860s saw the sheep numbers drop from 41,000 to 10,000. When the government resumed large parts of Kanyaka Run for agricultural settlement in the late 1870s, especially for towns like Wilson and Gordon which are now both ruined ghost towns, the run became unviable. Phillips just walked out of the leasehold in 1881 and the buildings were left to crumble. So the government closed down a viable sheep station for unviable wheat farms that caused untold heartache and agony for the farmers and their families. Wheat farms were never viable this far beyond Goyder’s line of demarcation between grain growing and pastoral regions. The station cemetery which is not accessible is across Kanyaka Creek. Dozens were employed on the run in its heyday and many died there too. The large woolshed catered for 24 shearers at once. The property buildings included: station homestead; overseers house; men’s kitchen and dining room; carpenter shop; stables; shearers’ quarters; various huts and sheds; blacksmith shop; cellars etc.
Malurus cyaneus cyanochlamys - Northern Superb Fairy-wren -female
roadside
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
New Zealand at its best in Autumn. Snow on the peaks and sheep in the warmth of the sun.
Canon 7D MarkII
Canon 70-300 F4L IS USM
ISO 200 | 135mm | F9 | 1/200s
Eopsaltria australis chrysorrhoa - North-eastern Yellow Robin
Sheepstation Creek Campground
Border Ranges National Park
North Coast region
New South Wales Australia
Kanyaka Homestead.
This pastoral leasehold run was established in 1852 by Hugh Proby who disappeared shortly afterwards whilst returning from a visit to his Pekina Run near Orroroo. This was one of the very first leaseholds in the Flinders Ranges. The next leaseholder John Phillips (with Alexander Grant) had the many fine stone buildings erected in the late 1850s. It was a large and prosperous run except during drought years and provided employment for 70 men and their families. The drought in the 1860s saw the sheep numbers drop from 41,000 to 10,000. When the government resumed large parts of Kanyaka Run for agricultural settlement in the late 1870s, especially for towns like Wilson and Gordon which are now both ruined ghost towns, the run became unviable. Phillips just walked out of the leasehold in 1881 and the buildings were left to crumble. So the government closed down a viable sheep station for unviable wheat farms that caused untold heartache and agony for the farmers and their families. Wheat farms were never viable this far beyond Goyder’s line of demarcation between grain growing and pastoral regions. The station cemetery which is not accessible is across Kanyaka Creek. Dozens were employed on the run in its heyday and many died there too. The large woolshed catered for 24 shearers at once. The property buildings included: station homestead; overseers house; men’s kitchen and dining room; carpenter shop; stables; shearers’ quarters; various huts and sheds; blacksmith shop; cellars etc.
Sheep waiting outside an outback shearing shed, somewhere, on a very bumpy dirt road, between Kingoonya and Ceduna, near Lake Everard in South Australia.
Warrock Station.
Warrock sheep station is fairly typical of most Australia Felix properties - well-watered, near a river, and taken up by settlers from Launceston, who were also Scots. Warrock near the Glenelg River is ideal for sheep and its origins go back to 1843 when the NSW government was allowing pastoral runs in this region. The original owners from Van Diemen’s Land soon sold to a Scot named George Robertson who took over the run of 11,700 acres in 1844. He had landed at Portland from Launceston. As a former cabinetmaker he spent the next thirty years designing wooden and sometimes brick Gothic style structures for his property. He built 57 wooden and brick structures plus the homestead which he kept enlarging from the original 1844 wooden structure. Thirty-three of the buildings are now heritage listed. Robertson’s cousin took out nearby Wando Vale run which adjoined Edward Henty’s run of Muntham (57,000 acres). (But the Hentys of Portland had other major runs too -Merino Downs, 23,500 acres and Sandford 15,700 acres.) Robertson married a cousin from Wando Vale but they had no children. When George Robertson died in 1890 he left Warrock to a nephew George Patterson. The leasehold of Warrock was converted to freehold in 1872. The Patterson family kept the property until 1992. Not only is this the most amazing sheep station in Australia but it is also the home of the Kelpie breed of sheep dog. The first Kelpie pup recognised as this breed was born on Warrock in the 1870s. Do not miss the brick dog kennels.
Warrock Station.
Warrock sheep station is fairly typical of most Australia Felix properties - well-watered, near a river, and taken up by settlers from Launceston, who were also Scots. Warrock near the Glenelg River is ideal for sheep and its origins go back to 1843 when the NSW government was allowing pastoral runs in this region. The original owners from Van Diemen’s Land soon sold to a Scot named George Robertson who took over the run of 11,700 acres in 1844. He had landed at Portland from Launceston. As a former cabinetmaker he spent the next thirty years designing wooden and sometimes brick Gothic style structures for his property. He built 57 wooden and brick structures plus the homestead which he kept enlarging from the original 1844 wooden structure. Thirty-three of the buildings are now heritage listed. Robertson’s cousin took out nearby Wando Vale run which adjoined Edward Henty’s run of Muntham (57,000 acres). (But the Hentys of Portland had other major runs too -Merino Downs, 23,500 acres and Sandford 15,700 acres.) Robertson married a cousin from Wando Vale but they had no children. When George Robertson died in 1890 he left Warrock to a nephew George Patterson. The leasehold of Warrock was converted to freehold in 1872. The Patterson family kept the property until 1992. Not only is this the most amazing sheep station in Australia but it is also the home of the Kelpie breed of sheep dog. The first Kelpie pup recognised as this breed was born on Warrock in the 1870s. Do not miss the brick dog kennels.
Kanyaka Homestead.
This pastoral leasehold run was established in 1852 by Hugh Proby who disappeared shortly afterwards whilst returning from a visit to his Pekina Run near Orroroo. This was one of the very first leaseholds in the Flinders Ranges. The next leaseholder John Phillips (with Alexander Grant) had the many fine stone buildings erected in the late 1850s. It was a large and prosperous run except during drought years and provided employment for 70 men and their families. The drought in the 1860s saw the sheep numbers drop from 41,000 to 10,000. When the government resumed large parts of Kanyaka Run for agricultural settlement in the late 1870s, especially for towns like Wilson and Gordon which are now both ruined ghost towns, the run became unviable. Phillips just walked out of the leasehold in 1881 and the buildings were left to crumble. So the government closed down a viable sheep station for unviable wheat farms that caused untold heartache and agony for the farmers and their families. Wheat farms were never viable this far beyond Goyder’s line of demarcation between grain growing and pastoral regions. The station cemetery which is not accessible is across Kanyaka Creek. Dozens were employed on the run in its heyday and many died there too. The large woolshed catered for 24 shearers at once. The property buildings included: station homestead; overseers house; men’s kitchen and dining room; carpenter shop; stables; shearers’ quarters; various huts and sheds; blacksmith shop; cellars etc.
Hill River and Hill River Station.
The Hill River which runs parallel to the Hutt River rises in the Clare Valley near Penwortham. The Hill River was named after early explorer John Hill. William Robinson was the first lease holder of the Hill River run around 1841 with a partner but he was soon the sole lessee. Records show that in 1844 Robinson had 8,000 ewes and 2,500 wethers on his Hill River run. He gave explorer John Horrocks of Penwortham thirteen goats to take with him on his 1846 expedition to the north of South Australia. William Robinson sold the lease of Hill River run to Charles B Fisher in 1855 as Robinson thought Yorke Peninsula was better country but he was mistaken. Robinson built the first part of an impressive homestead at Hill River in 1849. In 1855 after he sold his leasehold to Charles. B. Fisher of Bundaleer, Fisher converted 60,000 acres of leasehold land to freehold land. He ran 40,000 sheep on Hill River and grew wheat. By 1875 50,000 sheep were shorn at Hill River and cropping was also a major activity. 4,250 acres were cropped in that year with a ploughing team of 34 horses and it was harvested by 37 strippers each with a four horse team! Hill River run was the largest farm in SA. In 1876 Fisher ( a son of James Hurtle Fisher, First Resident Commissioner of the SA Company) sold Hill River to John Howard Angas , a son of George Fife Angas. John Howard Angas paid the amazing price of £220,000 for the property which was then about 60,000 freehold acres. The Angas family still reside in and own Hill River station. The homestead was enlarged and extended in 1827 with the same sandstone as the original 1849 part. The stone was quarried on the property. These extensions were made when Dudley Angas married Mary Abbot in 1925. But the government forced closer settlement at various times and Hill River station today is a mere 4,000 acres but with extensive stone outbuildings from the grand days of the station remain on the property.
Macropygia phasianella phasianella - Southern Brown Cuckoo-Dove
on Solanum sp.
Sheepstation Creek
Border Ranges National Park
Northern New South Wales
Australia
Warrock Station.
Warrock sheep station is fairly typical of most Australia Felix properties - well-watered, near a river, and taken up by settlers from Launceston, who were also Scots. Warrock near the Glenelg River is ideal for sheep and its origins go back to 1843 when the NSW government was allowing pastoral runs in this region. The original owners from Van Diemen’s Land soon sold to a Scot named George Robertson who took over the run of 11,700 acres in 1844. He had landed at Portland from Launceston. As a former cabinetmaker he spent the next thirty years designing wooden and sometimes brick Gothic style structures for his property. He built 57 wooden and brick structures plus the homestead which he kept enlarging from the original 1844 wooden structure. Thirty-three of the buildings are now heritage listed. Robertson’s cousin took out nearby Wando Vale run which adjoined Edward Henty’s run of Muntham (57,000 acres). (But the Hentys of Portland had other major runs too -Merino Downs, 23,500 acres and Sandford 15,700 acres.) Robertson married a cousin from Wando Vale but they had no children. When George Robertson died in 1890 he left Warrock to a nephew George Patterson. The leasehold of Warrock was converted to freehold in 1872. The Patterson family kept the property until 1992. Not only is this the most amazing sheep station in Australia but it is also the home of the Kelpie breed of sheep dog. The first Kelpie pup recognised as this breed was born on Warrock in the 1870s. Do not miss the brick dog kennels.
Rosebank.
The first white men to traverse the district were overlanders with flocks of sheep or cattle from NSW. One of their routes was to cross the Murray near Blanchetown and drive their flocks up the Marne River valley and into the Adelaide Hills. The first lessee of the district was George Melrose who took out a leasehold circa 1842. He established his homestead at Rosebank, east of Mt Pleasant in that year with his leasehold covering much of the land east of Mt Pleasant to the South Rhine (now Marne) River. He explored parts of SA for an outback station and liked the Lake Victoria country north of Renmark. When he married Euphemia Thomson in 1847 he took her to Lake Victoria for their honeymoon and she was the first white woman to visit such country. He probably had a simple cottage in the early years before he built a grand stone homestead at Rosebank around 1858. He acquired more runs in the north of SA, at Lake Victoria and at Franklin Harbour and Ulooloo. At a later stage in 1904 he built a grand stone shearing shed which is now heritage listed. He was undoubtedly a good employer for his workmen stayed for decades. Eight of his employees worked for him for between 30 and 50 years. George Melrose senior died at Rosebank in 1894 at the age of 87 years. He had had thirteen children. The Rosebank run, then freehold land was inherited by his third son Robert T. Melrose (1862-1945) who was born at Rosebank and managed it from 1896 until 1945. One of George and Euphemia’s daughters Elisabeth Melrose (1853 – 1945) married John Murray and they had a son named Sir John Stanley Murray. This grandson of George Melrose took over the property in 1946 after acquiring it from two of his uncles and he managed it until 1971. Sir John Stanley Murray (1884-1971) who was born on 27 March 1884 at Rosebank lived on the property and his managers were responsible for its development as a leading Aberdeen Angus stud. Sir John Stanley Murray’s daughter Alison Melrose Murray married Ian McLachlan (1908-1995) in June 1936. The three families of Melrose, Murray and McLachlan all have prominent headstones in the Mt Pleasant and Mt Crawford cemeteries. After Sir John Murray’s death in 1971 Rosebank passed to Angas McLachlan a son of Alison and Ian McLachlan who was born in 1944. His brother Ian, born in 1936 was the federal MP and Cabinet Minister in federal parliament from 1990 to 1998. The McLachlans purchased the Springfield House and estate near Williamstown in 1957. This historic house, Springfield House was built in 1841 for John Warren who took up land there circa 1840. Back at Rosebank in 2018 Will McLachlan and his family moved into the main house and took up the management role of the estate. Among the buildings on the property are accommodation cottages and the 1904 woolshed. At its peak 27,000 sheep a year were shorn in this shearing shed. Rosebank is still a Merino stud and its flock came from the Murray Merino bred by their relatives. Rosebank is also known for its beef production. Will McLachlan’s brothers are Gillon ( the retiring CEO of the AFL), Hamish and Banjo McLachlan.
Otupae Station is located about halfway between Taihape and Napier and covers an area of 8632ha, of which 5100ha is in grass with 165 paddocks.
About 16% is cultivatable, 41% moderately steep hill country and 43% very steep including mountainous country within the northern Ruahine Range.
The area is normally regarded as summer safe in spite of the annual average rainfall being only 900mm. It is normally evenly spread throughout the year, one of the strengths of farming in the area.
Soils on Otupae consist of various sedimentary rock types – mainly greywacke and consolidated sandstones and limestones – overlaid on all but the steep slopes with volcanic ash from either Taupo or Tongariro eruptions.
As would be expected on such a large station with contrasting contour, soil nutrient levels are extremely variable.
Tantanoola/Lucieton and its caves.
The town of Lucieton was gazetted by the government in 1879 partly because it was on the new railway from Mt Gambier to Beachport. Almost straight away the government authorised expenditure on a goods shed for the railway in 1880. Tenders for the wooden railway station at Lucieton were called for in 1880 and accepted. The first timber and iron Institute was erected in 1880 and used for the Lucieton School until a government school was built in 1886. Tenders were called for that new stone school and residence in 1884 for a cost of £1,000. The Railway Hotel at Lucieton was built circa 1879 and legally licensed in 1883. Although locals called the town Tantanoola the government persisted with Lucieton School, railway station etc. In May 1888 the government announced that new land sales in Lucieton would now be Tantanoola. This happened officially on Friday 5 October 1888. Tantanoola was an Aboriginal word meaning “boxwood hill.”
Tantanoola was known for more than just the Tantanoola Tiger. It held its first agricultural show from 1888; it had one of the first cheese factories in SA when it opened in 1886; its railway station and goods shed are some of the oldest railway buildings in the South East; it got its own district Council in 1888 which operated through to 1960. The old Council offices are now the current Post Office. Tantanoola also had tourism and visitors to its caves from the early 20th century and a series of conjoined buildings in the town were once the Up and Down Rocks Hotel. It was only licensed for a few years in the 1880s but its name referrers no doubt to rocks and caves of the district. Like most towns churches were important. Services were first held in the old Institute until St Andrews Presbyterian church was built in 1897 followed by the Methodist Church in 1907 and the grand St Clare’s Catholic Church in 1909. The old timber and iron institute was demolished in 1910 when the new Institute opened. A new façade was added to that hall after World War One in 1923 when it became the Memorial Hall. Sadly the Tantanoola school has had its ups and down. Additional classroom were added in 1926 but as student numbers declined the school finally closed in December 2020.
Warrock Station.
Warrock sheep station is fairly typical of most Australia Felix properties - well-watered, near a river, and taken up by settlers from Launceston, who were also Scots. Warrock near the Glenelg River is ideal for sheep and its origins go back to 1843 when the NSW government was allowing pastoral runs in this region. The original owners from Van Diemen’s Land soon sold to a Scot named George Robertson who took over the run of 11,700 acres in 1844. He had landed at Portland from Launceston. As a former cabinetmaker he spent the next thirty years designing wooden and sometimes brick Gothic style structures for his property. He built 57 wooden and brick structures plus the homestead which he kept enlarging from the original 1844 wooden structure. Thirty-three of the buildings are now heritage listed. Robertson’s cousin took out nearby Wando Vale run which adjoined Edward Henty’s run of Muntham (57,000 acres). (But the Hentys of Portland had other major runs too -Merino Downs, 23,500 acres and Sandford 15,700 acres.) Robertson married a cousin from Wando Vale but they had no children. When George Robertson died in 1890 he left Warrock to a nephew George Patterson. The leasehold of Warrock was converted to freehold in 1872. The Patterson family kept the property until 1992. Not only is this the most amazing sheep station in Australia but it is also the home of the Kelpie breed of sheep dog. The first Kelpie pup recognised as this breed was born on Warrock in the 1870s. Do not miss the brick dog kennels.
Otupae Station is located about halfway between Taihape and Napier and covers an area of 8632ha, of which 5100ha is in grass with 165 paddocks.
About 16% is cultivatable, 41% moderately steep hill country and 43% very steep including mountainous country within the northern Ruahine Range.
The area is normally regarded as summer safe in spite of the annual average rainfall being only 900mm. It is normally evenly spread throughout the year, one of the strengths of farming in the area.
Soils on Otupae consist of various sedimentary rock types – mainly greywacke and consolidated sandstones and limestones – overlaid on all but the steep slopes with volcanic ash from either Taupo or Tongariro eruptions.
As would be expected on such a large station with contrasting contour, soil nutrient levels are extremely variable.