Tobermorey 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 ...

that operates as a cattle station in the

Alice Springs region Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...

of 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 ...

. Tobermorey is on the western edge of

Punthamara The Punthamara were an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland. Country According to Norman Tindale, the Punthamara's tribal territories embraced roughly , along the creeks flowing east of the Grey Range, whose western flank they ...

territory

Location

The property is situated approximately east of

Alpurrurulam Alpurrurulam, from the original Aboriginal name ''Ilperrelhelame'', also known as Lake Nash, is a locality in the Northern Territory of Australia located in the territory's east about south-east of the territory capital of Darwin and about e ...

in the Northern Territory and west of Mount Isa in

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 , established_ ...

. The property is bounded to the north by

Manners Creek Station Manners Creek Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is situated about south of Alpurrurulam and north east of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Alice Springs. The property ...

, to the west by

Marqua Station Marqua Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is situated about south of Alpurrurulam and north east of Alice Springs. The property shares a boundary with Tarlton Downs to t ...

, to the west and south by Atnetye Aboriginal Land Trust and to the east by the

border. Several watercourses flow through the property including Field River, Manners Creek and Marqua Creek. The Plenty Highway passes through the northern end of the station near to the

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 ...

Description

Capable of carrying approximately 15,000 head of cattle, Tobermorey occupies an area of ; it is approximately in length and wide. The southern portion of Tobermorey is red soil with areas of sandhills, lightly timbered and supporting areas of

buffel grass ''Cenchrus ciliaris'' (buffel-grass or African foxtail grass; syn. ''Pennisetum ciliare'' (L.) Link) is a species of grass native to most of Africa, southern Asia (east to India), southern Iran, and the extreme south of Europe (Sicily). Other nam ...

around the watercourses. The northern section is open plain country timbered with Mulga and gidyea and covered with

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 ...

and other herbage.

Facilities

The Tobermorey Roadhouse provides both unleaded and diesel petroleum, a store stocked with a small variety of small goods, souvenirs, tyre repairs, powered and unpowered campsites and cabin accommodation for motorists heading west along Plenty Highway towards the Stuart Highway, and those heading east into Queensland via the

Donohue Highway The Donohue Highway is a mostly unpaved outback track that leads through the northern foothills of the Simpson Desert in Queensland to Tobermorey Homestead, Northern Territory near the Northern Territory/Queensland border in Australia. The road ...

History

Cattle belonging to Robert Anderson have been grazing on the lands since 1910. Anderson, who was previously a shopkeeper at Urandangie, moved to the area in 1913 to establish Tobermorey. Severe bushfires hit the area in 1952 and by 1954 the property was in the grip of

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

, with the Andersons preparing to ship their breeding stock from the property. The Anderson family sold the property in the 1980s. In 2009 the property was owned by Sterling Buntine, who had placed it up for auction; it was passed in at 11 million. By 2011 Tobermorey had been sold along with Linda Downs for 17.5 million. The current owners of the property are John and Bill Speed and their families.

References

{{Reflist Pastoral leases in the Northern Territory Stations (Australian agriculture) 1913 establishments in Australia

Location

Description

Facilities

History

See also

References