Yardie Creek, or Yardie Creek Station, is a pastoral lease and

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 ...

located 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 of

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 is situated approximately west north west of

Exmouth Exmouth is a harbor, port town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and seaside resort, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe and southeast of Exeter. In 2011 it had a population of 34,432, making Exmouth the List of town ...

and north of Coral Bay. The area was under

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 ...

beginning in 1876 when J Brockman acquired leases in the area covering

North West Cape North West Cape is a peninsula in the north-west of Western Australia. Cape Range runs down the spine of the peninsula and Ningaloo Reef runs along the western edge. It is in the Gascoyne region and includes the town of Exmouth. History In 1618, ...

to run cattle. Brockman sold parts of the lease in 1888 to

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

Thomas Carter, including Yardie Creek,

Exmouth Gulf Exmouth Gulf is a gulf in the north-west of Western Australia. It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf, and the Carnarvon Basin geologi ...

and

Ningaloo Station Ningaloo Station is a sheep station located in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia about north of Coral Bay. It is bordered to the north by Cape Range National Park. The station has an area of approximately and offers accommodation to ...

. Carter was the first settler in the area and established a pastoral station in 1889 grazing sheep. The working station was resumed by the government in December 1969 as part of the

Cape Range National Park Cape Range National Park is a national park in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia, north of Perth. The park occupies the western side of the North West Cape peninsula over an area of . The nearest town is Exmouth. Directly off the coast i ...

. The station experienced

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 ...

conditions in 1912, after which it was overrun by

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

s who came from the hill country in search of water. The following year a station partner, Mr Holst, reported the country had reasonable rains with falling in June followed by a downpour in July. Arnold Owen Holst and Alexander Campbell dissolved their partnership in 1927; Campbell remained at Yardie Creek and took up in partnership with Eric Arthur Payne some time soon after. The station took delivery of 50

ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...

s in 1928, followed by 50

merino The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the bree ...

rams from

Walebing Walebing is a small town in the wheatbelt region of Western Australia, in the Shire of Moora, it takes its name from the original homestead established by Anthony O'Grady Lefroy in the 1840s. Notable people * Ben Cuimermara Taylor Benedict ...

in 1929. The partnership between Campbell and Payne was dissolved in 1936, with Payne being in control of the lease. Campbell abandoned the station in 1938 following drought and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and went to

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. He claimed the station had been improved from virgin country of a value of about £14,000. The Payne family held the lease for the station until 1962. In 1946 many of the buildings around the station were destroyed by a

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

. The station was hit by another cyclone in 1953, resulting in extensive damage to the homestead and several outbuildings being demolished. The Broad family were the last occupiers of the pastoral lease and they left the area in 1970. The area was declared a national park in 1964, and the Ningaloo Marine Park was declared in 1987. The Yardie Creek

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 ...

was registered as a heritage site on the

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

in 1978. Parts of the timber and iron used to build the out-buildings were salvaged from . The ship was carrying cattle from the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia * Kimberley (Western Australia) ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley * Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania * Kimberley, Tasmania a small town * County of Kimberley, a ...

when it was driven aground and wrecked on North West Reef in 1907 during a

References

{{Stations of the Gascoyne Western Australia Homesteads in Western Australia Pastoral leases in Western Australia Stations (Australian agriculture) Shire of Exmouth Heritage places of Western Australia

See also

References