Abydos Station is a pastoral lease and

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 stati ...

located between Tom Price and Marble Bar and approximately 126 km south of

Port Hedland A port is a maritime law, maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inla ...

in the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. The station occupies an area of , and in 1946 had of fencing and the property was divided into 18 paddocks. The property also had 28

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s equipped with mills and a

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (building), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Nguni homestead, a cluster of houses inhabited by a single extended family, typically with a kraal ...

and

shearing shed Shearing sheds (or wool sheds) are large sheds located on sheep stations to accommodate large scale sheep shearing activities. In countries where large numbers of sheep are kept for wool, sometimes many thousands in a flock, shearing sheds a ...

. The Turner River flows through a portion of Abydos, and one of the neighbouring properties is Redcliffs Station. The

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

of the area are the Kariyarra peoples, who maintain a strong connection with country at Abydos and the nearby Yandeyarra Community. In 1912 the station was owned by Hall and Hester and was shipping

bullock Bullock may refer to: Animals * Bullock (in British English), a castrated male cattle, bovine animal of any age * Bullock (in American English), a young bull (an uncastrated male bovine animal) * Bullock (in Australia, India and New Zealand), an o ...

s out of Roebourne. The rationing officer at the station in 1930 was Frank Leeds; the station was in debt to the tune of 13,000 pounds at the time. The station is home to a rock formation known as the London Wall or China Wall, which is about wide and long; the feature looks as though it is man-made but is a natural formation of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

tors that has been uplifted. The formation was first reported in 1938. The

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

purchased Abydos and Woodstock stations in 1946. Both were set up to operate as research stations under the management of the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

, Department of Agriculture and Institute of Agriculture of the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

. The station suffered some damage in 1947 when 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 ant ...

passed through the area. The shearing shed and the cook's quarters were blown over, and an estimated of rain fell.

References

{{Stations of the Pilbara Western Australia Stations in the Pilbara

See also

References