Drysdale River Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stat ...

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 ...

Location

It is located just off the Kalumburu Road west of Kununurra and east of

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

in the Kimberley region.

Description

The station is approximately in size and runs about 7,000 head of cattle.

History

The

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

of the area are the

Ngarinjin The Ngarinyin or Ngarinjin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their language, Ngarinyin, is also known as Ungarinyin. When referring to their traditional lands, they refer to themselves as Wilinggi ...

, Miwa and

Wilawila The Wilawila are an indigenous Australian tribe of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Name Norman Tindale gave "wilawila" as the proper tribal ethnonym, but noted that, according to reports by the missionary Theodore Hernández, the sa ...

peoples. The pastoral lease is currently owned by the Koeyers family, who took up the lease in 1985. The Koeyers run about 8,000 head of cattle on the property. The area was initially taken up in 1882 by the Victorian Squatting Company, and the

Drysdale River Drysdale River is a river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The river rises in the Caroline Ranges, flows in a northerly direction and discharges into Napier Broome Bay near Kalumburu. The river contains several permanent pools, ...

was named by explorer Charles Burrowes in 1886. The company estimated the size of the run as being about 5 million acres, or . Burrowes had been sent by the company to survey it and compile a report, wrote a glowing account of the country and prophesied a great future for it. Captain Joe Bradshaw took up the lease in 1891 as part of a large area extending along the

Prince Regent River The Prince Regent River is a river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The headwaters of the river rise in the Caroline Range near Mount Agnes then flow in a north westerly direction. The river enters and flows through the Prince R ...

. While lost during an exploration of the area Bradshaw stumbled across the Indigenous Australian Gwion Gwion rock paintings, which are over 50,000 years old. He sent his steamer, ''Red Gauntlet'', ahead of him with Aeneas Gunn to construct stockyards while Bradshaw began to drove his herd overland from

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

. Bradshaw was met at the border by a party of policemen who demanded a tax of 1 pound per head to bring them into Western Australia. He refused and took his stock down the Victoria River to establish another station, Bradshaw's Run, now known as Bradshaw Station. The remoteness of the station was partially remedied by the surveying and construction of the Kalumburu Road from the

Gibb River Road The Gibb River Road is a road in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Description The road is a former cattle route that stretches in an east-west direction almost through the Kimberley between the towns of Derby and the Kununurra an ...

to Kalumburu in 1954. Dick Condon acquired the property in 1967 with the intention of making many improvements. He spent a large amount of money on the station, including the construction of a new homestead. The homestead was to be situated close to the river until it was noticed the debris stuck in the treetops along the riverbanks. It was then built from the river, just far enough to avoid being inundated by the floods of 1986 and 1997. Condon sold the property off to an overseas company and it was left to fall into disrepair. The station is almost inaccessible by road during the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

between December and May each year. During this time the area is dependent on the station's airstrip which was upgraded in 2002 following funding from the state government in 2001. In 2012 the lessee was Sunlight Holdings. Drysdale River is operating under the Crown Lease numbers CL515-1967 and CL539-1995 and has the Land Act numbers LA398/446 and LA398/844.

References

{{Stations of the Kimberley Western Australia Homesteads in Western Australia Pastoral leases in Western Australia Kimberley (Western Australia) Stations (Australian agriculture) 1882 establishments in Australia

Location

Description

History

See also

References