Ivanhoe or Ivanhoe 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 just north of Kununurra in the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

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 ...

. Founded in 1893 by the Durack brothers, station is presently owned by the Consolidated Pastoral Company.

Description

The station occupies an area of and follows the bank of the

Ord River The Ord River is a river in the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimberley region of Western Australia. The river's catchment covers . The lower Ord River and the confluence with Cambridge Gulf create the most northern estuarine environment in ...

as it flows from

Lake Argyle Lake Argyle is Western Australia's largest and Australia's second largest Freshwater lake, freshwater man-made Reservoir (water), reservoir by volume. The reservoir is part of the Ord River (Kimberley)#Ord River Irrigation Scheme, Ord River Ir ...

Cambridge Gulf Cambridge Gulf is a gulf on the north coast of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Many rivers flow into the gulf, including the Ord River, Pentecost River, Durack River, King River and the Forrest River, making the environment a ...

over a distance of . The alluvial flats and black soil plains support rich stands of

couch A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, chesterfield, or davenport, is a cushioned piece of furniture that can seat multiple people. It is commonly found in the form of a bench with upholstered armrests and is often fitted with springs a ...

and

buffel The Buffel (English: ''Buffalo'') is an infantry mobility vehicle used by the South African Defence Force during the South African Border War. The Buffel was also used as an armoured fighting vehicle and proved itself in this role. It replaced ...

, which make good grazing feed. The property lies on the land of the Gajirrawoong and Miriwung peoples, whose

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another colonising state. The requirements of proof for the recognition of ab ...

was recognised by the

Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indictable (mo ...

in 2006. Ivanhoe and its neighbour Carlton Hills are able to support 50,000 head of cattle including 18,000

Brahman In Hinduism, ''Brahman'' (; IAST: ''Brahman'') connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality of the universe.P. T. Raju (2006), ''Idealistic Thought of India'', Routledge, , page 426 and Conclusion chapter part XII In the ...

breeders. The station is able to turn off 9,000 steers per annum for live export to Asia and the Middle East.

History

The station was initially established by

Patrick Durack Patrick Durack (March 1834 – 20 January 1898) was a pastoral pioneer in Western Australia. His family were struggling tenant farmers from Magherareagh near Scarriff in County Clare, Ireland, who moved from Ireland to New South Wales in 1853. ...

and his brother Michael, who founded the station in 1893. Kimberley Durack first experimented with growing

cash crop A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate a marketed crop from a staple crop ("subsi ...

s in the fertile soil of the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

s, which later led to the establishment of the Ord River Scheme. An experimental farm was established on the Ord in 1941 and then closed in 1945 when joint Commonwealth-State Research Station was completed at Ivanhoe. The station experimented with crops such as

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

linseed Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. In 2022, France produced 75% of the ...

and

cane sugar Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula . For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...

for the next 12 years. Kununurra was built on land resumed from Ivanhoe Station during 1961, as the town for the Ord River Irrigation Area, which started as the Ord River Project or Ord Scheme, with survey work starting in 1959. Ivanhoe Crossing, built in 1954 on a rocky outcrop to cross the Ord river, was featured in the film ''

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 ...

'' when Lady Sarah Ashley is brought to Faraway Downs station. The crossing is close to where the Duracks constructed the Ivanhoe Station homestead and the unusual

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

formation named "City of Ruins". The local Aboriginal peoples, the Miriuwung and Gajirrawoong, are 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. The

labour force In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed): \text = \text + \text Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...

of the station was often provided by these peoples, who lived and worked on the property often under terrible conditions. Aboriginal workers were often not paid wages and only received rations for their labour until the Pastoral Award was introduced in 1968. At Ivanhoe in 1961, 90 Aboriginal people were living in three huts.

References

{{Stations of the Kimberley Western Australia Homesteads in Western Australia Stations in the Kimberley (Western Australia) 1893 establishments in Australia Ord River Kununurra, Western Australia

Description

History

See also

References