Balfour Downs Station is a
pastoral lease
A pastoral lease, sometimes called a pastoral run, is an arrangement used in both Australia and New Zealand where government-owned Crown land is leased out to graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands.
Australia
Pastoral lease ...
and
cattle station located approximately northeast of
Newman
Newman is a surname of English origin and may refer to many people:
The surname Newman is widespread in the core Anglosphere.
A
*Abram Newman (1736–1799), British grocer
*Adrian Newman (disambiguation), multiple people
*Al Newman (born 1960) ...
, east of
Roy Hill
The Roy Hill mine is an iron ore mine in the Chichester Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, located north of Newman and south of Port Hedland. With indicated and inferred reserves of more than , it is expected to become one of ...
and southeast of
Nullagine in the
Pilbara region of
Western Australia. At , it is among the
largest cattle stations in Australia.
Description
The station occupies an area of
and over 25,000
Zebu cattle graze on the plains. The herd is predominantly
Polled Red Brahman with 15,000 breeding females, producing 8,000 steers (males) and heifers (females) annually,
[ most of which are exported to the Middle East and Asia. The mineral-rich grazing country includes extensive watercourse and channel country, opening onto large floodplains covered with ]Mitchell
Mitchell may refer to:
People
*Mitchell (surname)
*Mitchell (given name)
Places Australia
* Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, a light-industrial estate
* Mitchell, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst
* Mitchell, Northern Territo ...
, Flinders
Flinders may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Flinders Peak, near the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula
Australia New South Wales
* Flinders County, New South Wales
* Shellharbour Junction railway station, Shellharbour
* Flinders, New South Wa ...
, and buffel grass.
The property boasts 35 new ring dams with over of water storage. The property was estimated in value of between $1520 million ( Australian dollars) in 2012.[ Due to the vast size of the property, R22 Beta helicopters are used to muster the animals.]
The Talawana Track
The Talawana Track is a remote unsealed track that runs between Windy Corner on the Gary Highway and the Marble Bar Road in Western Australia, a distance of 596 kilometres. The majority of it was built by Len Beadell and the Gunbarrel Road Co ...
passes through Balfour Downs, connecting it to the indigenous Australian community of Jigalong
Jigalong is a remote Aboriginal community of approximately 333 people located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Location
Jigalong is in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, approximately east of the town of Newman in the Shire ...
, roughly to the south and Karlamilyi National Park
Karlamilyi National Park lies in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, northeast of Newman and north-northeast of Perth. Proclaimed an A Class Reserve on 13 April 1977, it is the largest national park in Western Australia.
The park was in ...
, roughly to the east.
History
''Babburain'' is recorded in 1910 by Daisy Bate's informants as the Aboriginal name for the area on the Oakover river that Balfour Downs Station takes in.
Management of the station was taken over in 1910 by Mr. A. H. Crofton, who represented the firm of Broadhurst, McNeil and Company. Crofton had previously managed Pyramid Station
Pyramid Station is a pastoral lease and cattle station located approximately east of Karratha in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The station has also previously run sheep on its pastures.
Covering an area of , the station is situate ...
.
The station had great rains in 1913 causing the Oakover River
The Oakover River is a river in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The headwaters of the river rise north of the Wadara Range and west of the Saltbush range near Junction Well then flows in a northerly direction. The river continues nort ...
to run over its banks; at the time the station was co-owned by Mr. Crofton.
In 1915 an Aboriginal man named Darby from the Oakover River taking in Balfour Downs Station died at Mundiwindi
Mundiwindi is a ghost town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The town is around north east of Perth and south east of Newman, along the Jigalong Mission road.
The town was established in 1914 as a telegraph station. The station wa ...
telegraph station and was buried at Savory Creek, leaving behind two Aboriginal children, known as the Darby sisters. In 1917 the girls were forcibly removed from Balfour Downs and placed into the care of the McDonald family of Nullagine then moved onto the Moore River Native Settlement.
An Aboriginal
Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to:
*Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology
* Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area
*One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...
man known as Big Bob was murdered on the station by the drover Charles Park in 1915. Park's death sentence was later commuted to five years for good behaviour and he was released in 1921.
Doris Pilkington Garimara, the author of '' Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence'', was born on the station in 1937 and was forcibly removed with her mother four years later to the Moore River settlement
Settlement may refer to:
*Human settlement, a community where people live
*Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building
*Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
*Settlement (fina ...
.
Neighbouring stations, such as Ethel Creek Station
Ethel Creek Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station.
It is located about north east of Newman and south of Nullagine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It had about double frontage to the Fortescue River and ...
, were connected to Balfour Downs via the bush telephone. Balfour also had a pedal-powered wireless radio transmitter which was able to communicate as far away as Port Hedland.
William Dunnett, a part owner of the station, died in 1948. He had resided in the area since 1918.
Cattle from the station were often taken overland to Meekatharra then trucked to the yards at Midland
Midland may refer to:
Places Australia
* Midland, Western Australia
Canada
* Midland, Albert County, New Brunswick
* Midland, Kings County, New Brunswick
* Midland, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Midland, Ontario
India
* Midland Ward, Kohima, Nagal ...
junction. 13 bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s (about 600 head) of cattle were sent in 1929, 180 in 1932,
80 in 1938, another 600 cattle were dispatched in 1939, and another 700 in 1949.
The lessee in 2010 was Enipend Pty. Ltd. under the management of Donald Hoar. The Hoar family owned the station from some time before 2005 to 2012. Balfour Downs is operating under the Crown Lease numbers CL110-1970 and CL136-1989 and has the Land Act numbers LA3114/977 and LA398/804.
Hoar sold Balfour Downs to Xingfa Ma for approximately $18 million in 2014. Ma is a wealthy Chinese businessman who owns Ferngrove Wine Group based in the Great Southern region of Western Australia and Emu Downs Station.
See also
* List of pastoral leases in Western Australia
References
{{Stations of the Pilbara Western Australia
Pastoral leases in Western Australia
Pilbara
Stations (Australian agriculture)