Litchfield Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a
cattle station. It is located about north west of
Daly River and west of
Adelaide River in the
Northern Territory of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. Composed primarily of open grazing land, the property occupies an area of . The two adjoining sister properties are Elizabeth Downs and
Tipperary Stations; all three currently operate as a single entity, often referred to as the ''Tipperary Group''.
Description
The property is stocked with approximately 12,000 head of
Brahman cattle, with a capacity of 15,000, and is broken up into 28 paddocks with an average size of . Litchfield shares 12 holding paddocks, 6 permanent steel yards, 15 bores and a bitumen airstrip with neighbouring Tipperary.
There are numerous watering points in the form of
creek
A creek in North America and elsewhere, such as Australia, is a stream that is usually smaller than a river. In the British Isles it is a small tidal inlet.
Creek may also refer to:
People
* Creek people, also known as Muscogee, Native Americans
...
s,
springs and swamps scattered around the property; these can dry up before the onset of the
wet season, making the cattle dependent on bores for a small part of the year.
A floodplain that contains
para
Para, or PARA, may refer to:
Businesses and organizations
* Paramount Global, traded as PARA on the Nasdaq stock exchange
* Para Group, the former name of CT Corp
* Para Rubber, now Skellerup, a New Zealand manufacturer
* Para USA, formerly ...
grass and
marine couch backed onto the
Daly River mouth makes up part of Litchfield. The forested higher country is bound by the Reynolds River, which is the boundary of
Litchfield National Park.
History
Litchfield was acquired by
Melbourne-based
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
Alan Myers QC in 2003 for 50 million along with the 80,000 cattle. Myers also acquired
Tipperary,
Fish River and
Elizabeth Downs Stations.
The
Australian Agricultural Company offered 105 million to acquire Tipperary and Litchfield stations along with the 60,000 head of cattle in 2009, but the shareholder voted against the acquisition at an extraordinary general meeting held three months later.
In 2011, Australian Agricultural company purchased the Tipperary group's cattle herd of 53,000 head for 26 million, and also entered a one-year agreement to use the station group for
agistment purposes with options to extend.
David Warriner, the head of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association, was still managing the group in 2012, when it was stocked with 70,000 cattle raised for live export to
Indonesia.
See also
*
List of ranches and stations
References
{{Coord, 13, 25, 40, S, 130, 29, 37, E, type:landmark_region:AU-NT, display=title
Stations in the Northern Territory
Litchfield National Park