Napier Downs Station, commonly referred to as Napier Downs, 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 ...

in the Kimberley region in

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 ...

. Napier Downs is situated about 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 ...

and north west of

Fitzroy Crossing Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: ** FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Bea ...

and is accessed via 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 ...

. The property is mostly composed of black soil plains with the rocky ridges of the Napier Range running through the property. The plains are savannah country with many gorges found between the ridges at the southern end of the range. The station stocked with 20,000 head of Red Brahman cattle was acquired by

Kerry Stokes Kerry Matthew Stokes (born John Patrick Alford on 13 September 1940) is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. ...

from Peter Leutenegger in 2015 for an estimated 23 million to 40 million. Leutenegger, a former helicopter pilot, had worked in the region since 1980, and had acquired the property in 1992 after the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication program in the Kimberleys in the 1980s had led to many stations having to destock. The property was established in the early 1880s by M. C. Davies and the Kimberley Pastoral Company, who also owned neighbouring Kimberley Downs Station. In 1910 Napier Downs occupied an area of , was stocked with 9,000 cattle, and was still owned by M. C. Davies. The area was struck by

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 ...

in 1953, the station only receiving of rain when it normally received . The grass was burnt beyond recovery resulting tin losses of stock. In 1988 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 t ...

was the base camp for an expedition was carried out in the Napier Range by the Royal Geographical Society and the

Linnaean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

involving 30 scientists.

References

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

See also

References