Binthalya Station is a defunct

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 ...

that once operated as a

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It was located east of Carnarvon and south east of Coral Bay in the

Gascoyne The Gascoyne region is one of the nine administrative regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northwest of Western Australia, and consists of the local government areas of Carnarvon, Exmouth, Shark Bay and Upper Gascoyne. The Gasc ...

region. Situated at the foot of the Kennedy Range the property was well watered by numerous springs. The property was once described as consisting of soft and oathead spinifex flats with plenty of

saltbush Saltbush is a vernacular plant name that most often refers to ''Atriplex'', a genus of about 250 plants distributed worldwide from subtropical to subarctic regions. ''Atriplex'' species are native to Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. ...

. Binthalya is 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 ...

word the word ''thalya'' means ''hole there'' and takes its name from a nearby

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. The homestead was built by Andrew Dempster. In 1906 the property was owned by George Baston and occupied an area of and was stocked with 2,500 sheep. H. Gerald Lefroy acquired a stake in the property in 1908, providing capital to further improve the holding. Lefroy placed Binthalya on the market in 1909. At this stage the property comprised and was stocked with 6,000 sheep and 45 cattle. It was divided into three sheep paddocks and one horse paddock, and had seven wells, two of which had

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...

s. It was eventually acquired by the Dempster brothers in 1914; the Dempsters recruited H. E. Bates to manage the property for them. W. E. Dempster sold the property along with the 9,000 sheep it was stocked with to A. W. Walker and Co. in 1923. The lease for the property was surrendered in 1977 with parts of the lease taken up by the neighbouring properties, Mooka and Mardathuna Stations. In 2013 the area once covered by Binthalya was being managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation.

References

{{Stations of the Gascoyne Western Australia Pastoral leases in Western Australia Stations (Australian agriculture) Shire of Carnarvon

See also

References