Cordillo Downs or Cordillo Downs Station is both 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 ...

currently operating 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 ...

and a formal bounded locality in

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 ...

. It is located about north of Innamincka and south east of

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 ...

. The name and boundaries of the locality were created on 26 April 2013 for the long established local name. The station once occupied an area of and was regarded as Australia's largest

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 ...

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

(in the 1880s, Cordillo set a record of

shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be sai ...

over 85,000 sheep in a season). One of the best known features of the station is the

heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset A heritage asset is an item which has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. Such items are usually physical assets, but some countries also ...

-listed

woolshed 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 ar ...

that is constructed of stone with a curved

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

roof, built this way due to a lack of timber in the area. Cordillo gets around 167.3mm of rain annually.

History

First taken up by John Frazer from

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

in 1875 the station was initially known as Cardilla. Frazer let the property go in 1878 and a

ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16th cent ...

was held, the lease going to Edgar Chapman, who sold off in 1883 to Peter Waite of the Beltana Pastoral Company. The property was stocked with just over 10,000 sheep, nearly 600 cattle and about 30 horses. In 1903 the property was amalgamated with two other stations, Cadelga and Haddon Downs, and had a flock of around 85,000 by 1905. The homestead was abandoned for a few years during the 1930s. A plague of rats swept across the property from further north in Queensland in 1940, they were prevented from making it further south by the flooded

Cooper Creek The Cooper Creek (formerly Cooper's Creek) is a river in the Australian states of Queensland and South Australia. It was the site of the death of the explorers Burke and Wills in 1861. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its ...

. Cattle replaced sheep on the station in 1942 when the manager, Mr Napier, decided that the

wild dog A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of whi ...

s that were prevalent in the area and were inside the boundary fence at the time would cause less damage. The entire area was struck by

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, ...

in 1946 with many cattle dying and properties destocking. Airmail delivery to remote properties in

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland commenced in 1949. Cordillo Downs along with other remote properties including Mungerannie, Clifton Hills,

Glengyle Glengyle distillery is a Scotch whisky production centre in Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute. It was opened in 1872, closing in 1925, and reopening in 2000. Its single malts are bottled under the name Kilkerran. History The Glengyle distillery w ...

, Davenport Downs, Morney Plains, Mount Leonard, Durrie, Mulka, Tanbar, Durham Downs,

Nappa Merrie Nappa Merrie Station, most commonly known as Nappa Merrie, is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in central west Queensland, Australia. Description The property is located north east of Innamincka and south east of Birdsvil ...

, Lake Pure and

Naryilco Naryilco Station, also known as Naryilco Downs, is a pastoral lease in Queensland, Australia, that operates as a cattle station. Description It is located about north of Tibooburra and south east of Innanincka in the Channel Country of outb ...

were also on the route. The

broke its banks in 1950 resulting in widespread flooding through the area. A

meteor A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

was thought to have landed somewhere at Cordillo in 1954. The bright flash and ball of fire that lasted for several minutes was spotted from many properties including Innamincka,

Muloorina Muloorina is both a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station and a formal bounded locality in South Australia. The name and boundaries of the locality were created on 26 April 2013 after the long-established local name. The property i ...

and Narilya, all of whom reported the phenomena to the

Royal Flying Doctor Service The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), commonly known as the Flying Doctor, is an aeromedical retrieval service in Australia and the largest of its kind in the world. It is a non-profit organisation that provides urgent and emergency medica ...

. Beltana owned the property until 1981 when they sold it to Brookman Holdings for $1.2 million. Brookman holdings is owned by the Brook family, Bill Brook was 81 years old when he bought Cordillo, where he was employed in 1918 as a

ringer Ringer(s) may refer to: Sports and games * Ringer, in sports idiom, an impostor, especially one whose pretense is intended to gain an advantage in a competition * Road course ringer, a non-NASCAR driver hired to race at a road course * A game p ...

for 30

shillings The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence ...

per week. The property was owned by Anthony and Janet Brook in 2012, both of whom met

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...

and Camilla in

Longreach Longreach is a rural town and locality in the Longreach Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Longreach Regional Council, which was established in 2008 as a merger of the former Longreach, Ilfracombe, and I ...

during their 2012 tour of the outback. The Brooks run a herd of approximately 40,000

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

cattle and are certified

organic Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...

producers of beef using the OBE Beef label. Both the historic main Cordillo Downs Homestead and Woolshed and the Cadelga Homestead Ruins are listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

. The woolshed was damaged by a storm in 2017, and restored with the help of Scottish stonemasons, with the work completed in July 2019. The stonework was restored using the traditional techniques, and the roof that had been blown off was replaced.

Geography, vegetation and geology

The terrain of the country is flat with undulating

gibber plain 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 (geology), rock fragments ...

s with sandhills and

claypan Claypan is a dense, compact, slowly permeable layer in the subsoil. It has a much higher clay content than the overlying material, from which it is separated by a sharply defined boundary. The dense structure restricts root growth and water infiltra ...

s. The land is prone to

but otherwise has a light grass covering. Native vegetation found in the area include

Mitchell grass ''Astrebla'' is a small genus of xerophytic (adapted to survive in an environment with little liquid water) grasses found only in Australia. They are the dominant grass across much of the continent. They are commonly known as Mitchell grass aft ...

, katoora, spinifex, cane grass, sandhill wattle and

Bladder saltbush ''Atriplex vesicaria'', commonly known as bladder saltbush, is a species of flowering plant of the family ''Amaranthaceae'' and is endemic to arid and semi-arid inland regions of Australia. It is an upright or sprawling shrub with scaly leaves ...

. Cordillo Downs is situated in the

channel country The Channel Country is a region of outback Australia mostly in the state of Queensland but also in parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous Braided river, intertwined rivulets that cro ...

and is periodically inundated with water from heavy rains further north, resulting in lush vegetation growth immediately afterwards. Some pasture species that appear when the water recede are Nardoo, Cooper Clover, Verbine, Lignum as well as many grasses. The Cordillo Downs road links the station with Innamincka and the

Birdsville Developmental Road The Birdsville Developmental Road (State Route 14) is a mostly unsealed road in south-west Queensland that branches off the Diamantina Developmental Road at a point west of Windorah and runs to Birdsville. Its length is . The road crosses a ...

References

{{Coord, 26.70856, S, 140.6201, E, type:landmark_region:AU-SA, display=title Stations in South Australia Far North (South Australia) 1875 establishments in Australia

History

Geography, vegetation and geology

See also

References