Stuart Creek 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 once operated as a

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

. It now 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 outback

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 ...

Description

It is located approximately north of Roxby Downs and north west of Lyndhurst. The property is bounded to the north by Lake Eyre South, to the east by Billa Kalina Station, the south by Mulagaria and Andamooka Stations and to the east by Finniss Springs Aboriginal lands. The

ephemeral Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...

watercourse, Stuart Creek, runs through the property. The property is a mixture of land types including sandhills, breakaways, mound springs and

gibber 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 fragments of pebble and c ...

plains. Currently the lease is held by

BHP BHP Group Limited, founded as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, is an Australian multinational mining and metals corporation. BHP was established in August 1885 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. As of 2024, BHP was the world� ...

and occupies an area of .

History

The first European to pass through the area was

John McDouall Stuart John McDouall Stuart (7 September 18155 June 1866), often referred to as simply "McDouall Stuart", was a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished of all Australia's inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to tra ...

in 1858 who named the Creek Chambers Creek. He was awarded a claim in the area and the creek was later renamed Stuart Creek. By 1862 Stuart was in ill-health and sold his claim to Alfred Barker and John Chambers. Barker stocked the property, but suffered significant stock losses during the

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, ...

of the late 1860s and early 1870s. The drought that struck from 1864 to 1865 was broken by floods in 1866. John Howard Angus acquired the property in 1870. W. Rose

drove Drove may refer to: * Drovers' road, a route for driving livestock on foot * Past tense verb of driving * Drove chisel, tool used by stonemasons for smoothing off roughly finished stones * Drove, a group of hares * Drove, a number of cattle driven ...

1,260 cattle from

Newcastle Waters Station Newcastle Waters Station is a pastoral lease between Alice Springs and Darwin, supporting about 45,000 cattle in a notably well-watered area of 10,353 square kilometres. Kerry Packer was once a partner in the station, and sent his son James ...

to Stuart Creek, a distance of , over a 12-week period in 1910. The feat was considered a droving record of the time. In 1911 the property was owned by the Willowie Pastoral Company and managed by Mr Paxton. At this time it occupied an area of approximately and was experiencing a good season. About 23 bores had been sunk on the station. The company put the property up for auction of 1916, when it occupied an area of , but it was passed in and remained unsold. By 1918 it was acquired by the Kidman family, who retained possession for the next 80 years. The property was an outstation of

Anna Creek Station Anna Creek Station is the world's largest working cattle station. It is located in the Australian state of South Australia. Description Anna Creek Station has an area of . It is larger than its nearest rival, Alexandria Station (Northern Ter ...

until it was partitioned in 1998. A northern portion was absorbed into the Anna Creek lease, with the remaining larger lease acquired by Western Mining Corporation.

References

{{Stations of Sidney Kidman Stations in South Australia Far North (South Australia)

Description

History

See also

References