Supplejack Downs, also known as Suplejack Downs, 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 ...

operating as a cattle station in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

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 ...

. The property is situated about south of Darwin and about south west of Lajamanu in the locality of

Tanami Tanami may refer to. Places * Tanami (IBRA region), a biogeographic region in Australia * Tanami, Northern Territory, a locality in Australia *Tanami Desert, a desert in Australia *Tanami Downs, a pastoral lease in Australia *Tanami Road __NOT ...

in the central west of the

. Supplejack shares a boundary with the Purtu Aboriginal Land Trust to the west and is otherwise surrounded by vacant crown land. Suplejack occupies an area of along the margins of the Tanami Desert and is accessible by the

Tanami Track __NOTOC__ The Tanami Road, also known as the Tanami Track, Tanami Highway, and the McGuire Track, is a road in Australia that runs between the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory and the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia. It is a ...

. The country is composed of rolling hills, tablelands open plains and flood-out country, with herbage such as

Mitchell grass ''Astrebla'' is a small genus of xerophytic (adapted to survive in an environment with little liquid water) grasses found only in Australia. They are the dominant grass across much of the continent. They are commonly known as Mitchell grass afte ...

, Flinders grass and oat grass, along with trees and shrubs including suplejack, mulga, whitewood and spinifex. The property supports a herd of approximately 8,000 cattle. The property was established in 1961 by Bob and Lil Savage when they were granted a grazing licence for the area. Construction of a

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses *Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept th ...

commenced in 1965 as did fencing and the drilling of bores. By 1966 two bores had been sunk and of fencing had been erected. The Savages had previously worked on the nearby stations Hooker Creek and Yuendumu, before deciding on settling at Suplejack. In 1976 the property occupied an area of and was subject to a claim of being a traditional Dreaming area of four

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 ...

men, all members of the

Warlpiri people The Warlpiri, sometimes referred to as Yapa, are a group of Aboriginal Australians defined by their Warlpiri language, although not all still speak it. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered thr ...

. Another family, the Cooks, were also living at Suplejack in 1976. A pastoral lease was granted to the Savages by the government in 1978, which they still held in 2011. Tragedy struck the Cook family during the cattle muster of 2008 when a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

crash left Rob Cook a quadriplegic as a result of spinal injuries he received in the crash. The pastoral community rallied around the Cook family and raised 75,000 to support them, while Rob received treatment in an

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

hospital. Rob later crossed the Tanami Desert in his modified four wheel drive wheelchair to raise money for his

Nuffield Scholarship Nuffield may refer to: * William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, founder of Oxford-based Morris Motors and philanthropist *Nuffield, Oxfordshire, a village in Oxfordshire, England and home of William Richard Morris from which he chose his title, Vis ...

, and was awarded a courage medal at the national Pride of Australia awards in 2011. He received a Nuffield Scholarship in 2011.

References

{{Reflist Stations in the Northern Territory 1961 establishments in Australia

See also

References