Deep Well 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

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 ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Description

It is situated about south 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 ...

and east of the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; it has a distance of . Its northern and souther ...

in the Northern Territory, just off the Phillipson stock route. Lying between the

MacDonnell Ranges The MacDonnell Ranges, or Tjoritja in Arrernte language, Arrernte, is a mountain range located in southern Northern Territory. MacDonnell Ranges is also the name given to an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australia ...

and 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 ...

and taking in much of the Ooraminna Ranges, the property is composed of a variety of land types including red sand hills, rocky outcrops and spinifex plains. Deep Well is just east of the former

Central Australia Railway The former Central Australia Railway, which was built between 1878 and 1929 and dismantled in 1980, was a Narrow-gauge railway, 1067 mm narrow gauge railway between Port Augusta railway station, Port Augusta and Alice Springs. A standard gau ...

, which had a stop also called Deep Well.

History

William Hayes and his wife Mary arrived in Alice Springs in 1884 with steel telegraph poles to replace the original wooden ones used to build the

Overland Telegraph The Australian Overland Telegraph Line was an electrical telegraph system for sending messages the between Darwin, in what is now the Northern Territory of Australia, and Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. Completed in 1872 (with a li ...

. They also worked on other properties in the area such as Mount Burrell and Owen Springs Station. The Hayes established the property in the late 1880s and it has remained in the Hayes family ever since. Billy Hayes, the fifth generation of the Hayes family, was inducted into the Stockman's Hall of Fame in 2009. Hayes was the hero in ''Turbulence'', the

bush poem The bush ballad, bush song, or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one of ...

written by Murray Hartin. A

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, ...

from 1964 to 1965 resulted in Ted Hayes moving all the stock to

Undoolya Station Undoolya Station is a pastoral lease east of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory of Australia. It was one of the first two pastoral leases granted in the region with the lease for it, and Owen Springs Station, being grante ...

and temporarily leaving Deep Well abandoned. All the Aboriginal workers also left the property and set up camp at Undoolya as well. During the early 1990s the area was struck by

once more and had large debts. Some 5,000 cattle had been grazing at Deep Well up until the drought started. The Hayeses decided to diversify into tourism and built a lodge on the northern side of the station at Ooraminna. Shortly afterwards

Ted Egan Edward Joseph Egan (born 6 July 1932) is an Australian folk musician and a former public servant who served as Administrator of the Northern Territory from 2003 to 2007. Early life Egan was born in Coburg, Victoria, and was educated at Parade ...

approached the family asked if he could build a movie set in the same location for a film version of his song '' The Drover's Boy''. The film did not progress but the replica buildings of

Newcastle Waters Newcastle Waters is a town and locality off the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. It is classified as a ghost town that contains a number of preserved historic buildings, including Jones's Store and the Junction Hotel. Geography no ...

from 1921 remain at Ooraminna and are used for tourist accommodation. The property was again struck by

starting in 2002, with Billy Hayes destocking the property in 2006 when the last of the dams dried up. Billy Hayes died in 2011 died in a

quad bike An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike or quad (if it has four wheels), as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, has a seat ...

accident at the property. Following the death of her husband Jan Hayes placed the property on the market in 2013 with their son Billy Hayes Junior taking on the management of the property. the property was still on the market. In 2016 Billy Hayes Junior died in a plane crash while mustering on New Crown Station.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Stations in the Northern Territory

Description

History

See also

References