Nappa Merrie Station, most commonly known as Nappa Merrie, 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 central west

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia.

Description

The property is located north east 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 ...

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 ...

. It has double frontage to

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 ...

and is bounded to the west by the

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 ...

n border. The property has a limited number of channels through the area but is part of a natural floodplain and contains low lying swamps that provide excellent feed after floodouts that last until the dry season. The homestead has been built above and adjacent to the Nappa Merrie waterhole. The station currently occupies an area of and is able to carry 11,000 head of cattle. It is currently owned by Morella Agriculture (David Coulton) and is managed by Peter Degoumois.

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 Wongkumara people. The name means "sandhill waterhole" and comes from the words ''ngappa'' meaning water and ''merri'' meaning sandhill. British explorers started to enter the area from 1845 with the expedition led by Captain Charles Sturt.

Augustus Charles Gregory Sir Augustus Charles Gregory (1 August 1819 – 25 June 1905) was an English-born Australian explorer and surveyor. Between 1846 and 1858 he undertook four major expeditions. He was the first Surveyor-General of Queensland. He was appointed a ...

journeyed through the region in 1858, while the 1860-61

Burke and Wills expedition The Burke and Wills expedition (originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition) was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61. The exploration party initially consisted of ninet ...

made the area famous for the camps they made in the vicinity of ''ngappa merri'', including the Dig Tree camp. The pastoral station of Nappa Merrie was established along Cooper Creek in 1873 by colonist John Conrick. Conrick and five companions, all under the age of 21 and guided by Wongkumara man Jimmy Bostock, overlanded a herd of 1,600 cattle to the property from

Koroit Koroit is a small rural town in western Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia a few kilometres north of the Princes Highway, north-west of Warrnambool, Victoria, Warrnambool and west of Melbourne. It is in the Shire of Moyne local govern ...

, Victoria. Conrick initially constructed the head station at Baryulah waterhole, but after floods and violence with the numerous local Aboriginal people, he soon moved it to the Bullah Bullah waterhole where Burke and Wills had previously established their depot. In 1876, former

Native Police Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal troopers under the command of European officers appointed by British colonial governments. The units existed in va ...

officer John Bligh Nutting formed the Chastleton run on the north side of Cooper Creek across from Nappa Merrie. This property was named after Nutting's home town of Chastleton in England where his father had been a reverend. A Native Police detachment under Sub-Inspector Walter Cheeke was stationed at Chastleton in 1877, and committed a massacre of the resident Aboriginal population. The Conrick family later took up the Chastleton lease, amalgamating it with Nappa Merrie. The Conricks stayed on the station for the next 83 years. From 1892 to 1934 the property was running mostly

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 ...

with only a few cattle. Remains of fences and an old

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

scour can still be found on the property. Much of the labouring at Nappa Merrie at this time was done by the remnant Wongkumara people. However, by the 1940s there was only three Aboriginal labourers present. At one point a flock of 46,000 head of sheep were grazing on the property resulting in the land collapsing and the station being vacated for a time. In the late 1940s the Tancred brothers invested in the company with Harry Tancred later appointed as the chairman of directors. Shortly afterwards the Lake Pure lease was acquired. Cattle grazing, which had been confined to the channels and wetlands, was expanded after bores were sunk in the plains away from the channel country allowing stock to roam further. 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. Nappa Merrie along with other remote properties including Mungerannie, Clifton Hills, Glengyle, Davenport Downs, Morney Plains, Mount Leonard, Durrie, Mulka, Tanbar, Durham Downs, Cordillo Downs, Lake Pure and Naryilco were also on the route. Cooper Creek broke its banks in 1950 resulting in widespread flooding through the area. In 1954 the station was sold, Nappa Merrie included the Lake Pure and Chastleton leases and occupied an area of and was sold to the Playford River Pastoral Company by the Tancred Brothers and Conrick family. Oil and gas exploration and extraction began on Nappa Merrie and the surrounding region in the latter half of the 20th Century. Construction of the large

Ballera gas plant Ballera gas plant is a natural-gas processing facility located on the Nappa Merrie pastoral lease in the southwestern Queensland, Australia. It is operated by Santos Limited. The gas plant processes gas from approximately 130 wells in 45 gas f ...

processing facility near Ballera creek on Nappa Merrie started in 1991 and was completed and upgraded in 1997. Peter "Whip" Degoumious became the manager of Nappa Merrie in 2004 when it was still owned by the Stanbroke Pastoral Company. S. Kidman & Co. took up the lease in 2007 for a seven-year period.

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 ...

swept through the area in late 2011 burning a large portion of the station resulting in the loss of feed for stock. In November 2016, the property was purchased by Morella Agriculture.

Dig Tree

Approximately 30,000-35,000 people enter Nappa Merrie every year to visit the heritage-listed Burke and Wills Dig Tree, situated on a small reserve held in the name of the

Royal Historical Society of Queensland The Royal Historical Society of Queensland (RHSQ) is a historical society founded in Brisbane, Australia in 1913. It promotes the study of Australian history especially that of Queensland and adjacent Pacific islands. It maintains an important c ...

. The tree was made famous for its part in the

and is situated near Bullah Bullah waterhole, part of Cooper Creek about from the station homestead.

References

{{Stations of Sidney Kidman Stations in Queensland South West Queensland 1871 establishments in Australia

Description

History

Dig Tree

See also

References