Limbunya 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 of Australia
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 ...
.
Location
The property is situated approximately west of the community of
Daguragu and south of
Darwin. The property shares a boundary with Waterloo Station to the north and
Inverway,
Riveren and
Bunda Stations to the south. The Daguragu Aboriginal Land Trust bounds Limbunya to the east with the Malngin Aboriginal Land Trust to the west.
Description
Limbunya occupies an area of and typically supports a herd of 35,000 cattle.
Cattle are raised for the
live export trade and shipped out from
Darwin to markets in Indonesia, Egypt and the Philippines.
Split up into 21 paddocks ranging in size from to , the property is also equipped with six sets of processing yards. The property has about of fencing and of internal roads.
[ Stock are watered by 11 bores and 12 dams as well as numerous springs and creeks situated on the property.
The homestead is composed of three houses, staff kitchen, guest quarters, cooks quarters, social club, workshop and machinery shed. The station has six permanent employees and also employs up to eight life skills participants at any one time.
]
History
Vestey brothers owned the property in 1928; the property was being run as part of another of their properties, Waterloo Station. The station manager in 1935 was Mr. L. Bumpa. The well known stockman, Sing Poo, was killed at Limbunya in a car accident in 1950. One of the largest bushfires
A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...
seen in the Territory burned through the area in 1951. The fire front was about wide and burned about half of Limbunya. About sixty Aboriginal workers walked off the job at Limbunya as part of the Gurindji Strike
The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle stati ...
that started at another Vestey property, Wave Hill Station
Wave Hill Station, most commonly referred to as Wave Hill, is a pastoral lease in the Northern Territory operating as a cattle station. The property is best known as the scene of the Wave Hill walk-off, a strike by Indigenous Australian w ...
.
Tony Davis acquired Limbunya in 1996 for an amount less than A$15 million. In 2004 he also added Moroak Station to his portfolio and later placed Limbunya on the market in 2008 where it was expected to fetch A$35 million.
See also
*List of ranches and stations
This is a list of ranches and sheep and cattle stations, organized by continent. Most of these are notable either for the large geographic area which they cover, or for their historical or cultural importance.
Africa
* Obudu Cattle Ranch
* S ...
References
{{Reflist
Stations in the Northern Territory