Andado 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 Pastoral farming, graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands. Austral ...

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 stati ...

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 (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. On the traditional lands of the

Arrernte people The Arrernte () people, sometimes referred to as the Aranda, Arunta or Arrarnta, are a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the Arrernte lands, at ''Mparntwe'' (Alice Springs) and surrounding areas of the Central Australia regi ...

before European settlement, the first pastoral lease was granted in 1880. The station includes the Mac Clark Conservation Reserve, created to help preserve the rare Acacia peuce tree.

Location

It is situated in the locality of Ghan about south of

Ltyentye Apurte Community Ltyentye Apurte, also known as Santa Teresa, is a community in the Northern Territory, Australia, many residents of the locality are members of the Arrernte indigenous community, whose origins are located about south-east of Alice Springs. ...

and south east of

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

. The property shares a boundary with Crown Point Station to the west, Allambi to the north west, Pmere Nyenti Aboriginal Lands trust to the north and east, and the border with

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

to the south. The

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 ...

is the easternmost habitation on the western side of the

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Deserts of Australia, Australian desert, with an area of . The Wangka ...

Description

The station occupies an area of and is the largest privately held station in Australia. The property is situated on the western edge of the

and has a portion of the ephemeral

Finke River The Finke River, or Larapinta in the Indigenous Arrernte language, is a river in central Australia, whose bed courses through the Northern Territory and the state of South Australia. It is one of the four main rivers of Lake Eyre Basin and is th ...

flowing through it. It is composed of a mix of land systems, including

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

sand plains and sand dunes,

gibber A desert pavement, also called reg (in western Sahara), serir (in eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (in central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and c ...

plains, low hills and rises, flood-out country, swamps and lakes. The swamplands are found between tall dunes and only flood intermittently. Vegetation communities include large areas of spinifex grassland,

saltbush Saltbush is a vernacular plant name that most often refers to ''Atriplex'', a genus of about 250 plants distributed worldwide from subtropical to subarctic regions. ''Atriplex'' species are native to Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. ...

shrublands, and

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

and

eucalypt Eucalypt is any woody plant with Capsule (fruit), capsule fruiting bodies belonging to one of seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...

woodlands.

History

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 Arrente people, who lived and travelled through the area for thousands of years. The area is rich in Aboriginal artefacts and the name of the property is derived from a word meaning ''stone tool'' in Southern Arrente (aka Pertame), one of the

Arrernte language Arrernte or Aranda (; ), or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte (Upper Aranda), is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory, Australia, by the Arrernte people. Other spelling variations ar ...

dialects. A portion of the area that is now part of the Andado leaseholding was held by Willoghby and Gordon in 1880. By 1909 the same area was occupied by Robert Sharpe and David Mayfield. The Andado lease was first taken up by Robert MacDill in 1909. He sank several bores in the area and in 1914 gained more leases with his brother Robert David MacGill and Henry Stanley Roper. Shortly afterwards a mud brick dwelling was built. Another homestead was built in 1922 after Robert married and his wife came to live at the station. This homestead remains and is known as the Old Andado homestead.

Sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

were introduced to the property at around the same time and several good seasons followed with plentiful rains. By the late 1920s

drought A drought is a period of 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, ...

struck the area and like many in the area the MacDill's struggled. By 1933 the property was running 1300 sheep, 420 cattle and 116 horses. The MacDill family sold the property in 1942 and it changed hands several times until H. H. Overton acquired the property in 1955. Overton set up a partnership with experienced station manager Malcolm Clark, better known as ''Mac''. The Clark family arrived at Andado in 1955. Molly and Mac Clark and their three sons, Graham, Kevin and Philip, initially lived in the original homestead that was built in the 1920s but was prone to flooding. In 1960 they moved into a new homestead that was built to the west of the old one on higher ground. By 1969 the Clark family owned Andado outright and by 1972 they commenced work on restoring the old abandoned homestead which was used to accommodate tourists. In 1978 Mac suffered a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

and died a week later. Molly sold the property following a decision by the

federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

in 1984 to eradicate

brucellosis Brucellosis is a zoonosis spread primarily via ingestion of raw milk, unpasteurized milk from infected animals. It is also known as undulant fever, Malta fever, and Mediterranean fever. The bacteria causing this disease, ''Brucella'', are small ...

and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

on all cattle in the Northern Territory, which forced all of the stock on the property to be destroyed. In 1986 Molly sold the station except for the homestead and 45 square kilometres named Old Andado to be run as a stand-alone tourist destination. The Mac Clark Conservation Reserve was established in 1982 within the station boundaries to preserve the rare Acacia peuce tree, of which there is a stand of 1,000 mature trees found about north of the old homestead. During the 1900s most of these trees had been cut down to make shelters and stockyards until there were only three populations left: one at Andado, another near to

Birdsville Birdsville is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. The locality is on the Queensland border with both the Northern Territory and South Australia. The town is situated north of the South Australian bord ...

and the last near Boulia. The area had been struck by

from 2001 with minimal rains for the next eight years. In 2009 Don and Colleen Costello took over Andado after selling

Mount Ebenezer Mount Ebenezer Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Location It is situated about north east of Yulara and south west of Alice Springs. The lease shares a boundary with other ...

Station. The Costellos also acquired New Crown and Lilla Creek Station, which together occupy an area of . Don and Colleen live on New Crown with the managers, Wayne and Clarice Kimlin, in charge at Andado. Later the same year rains came and the

flowed for the first time in over a decade. The property was stocked up with 3,000 head of cattle shortly afterwards. By 2018, Andado Station was reported to be run by Viv Oldfield.

References

{{Reflist Stations in the Northern Territory 1909 establishments in Australia

Location

Description

History

See also

References