Tipperary 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 ...

. It is located about east of Daly River and south of

Adelaide River, Northern Territory Adelaide River is a small but historically significant town located at the crossing of the Stuart Highway over the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory of Australia. The town is upstream of the Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains Important B ...

, Australia. Composed primarily of open grazing land, the property occupies an area of . The two adjoining sister properties are Elizabeth Downs and Litchfield Stations, and all three currently operate as a single entity often referred to as the Tipperary Group.

Description

Tipperary is divided into 72 paddocks with an average size of and along with neighbouring Litchfield has six permanent steel yards, one set of portable yards, 20 aluminium tanks and 15 bores. The area has a wide variety of natural watering points in the form of springs, creeks and swamps although some can dry up prior to the wet season. The property shares a boundary with

Litchfield National Park Litchfield National Park, covering approximately 1500 km2, is near the township of Batchelor, Northern Territory, Batchelor, 100 km south-west of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Each year the ...

and Litchfield Station to the north, Ban Ban Springs and Douglas Stations to the east, unclaimed

Crown land Crown land, also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realm ...

to the south and the Malak Malak Aboriginal Land Trust to the west.

History

Established in 1914, the station was taken by William James Byrne who had previously owned a business in Brocks Creek, and eventually acquired Burnside Station. By 1914 he sold Burnside and established Tipperary just beyond the Burnside boundary. Byrne settled on the property with his wife Elizabeth and they had seven sons, only four of whom lived to adulthood. Many cattle were killed in late 1925 along the river boundary to the station. Byrne posted a £50 reward for information leading to the conviction of the "scoundrel" responsible. When William Byrne died in 1941, the station was left under the management of his widow and three remaining sons, who were also managing neighbouring Burnside Station. Part of Tipperary was surrendered to the Crown in 1986 along with portions of Stapleton and Camp Creek pastoral leases to form

. The station was once owned by entrepreneur Warren Anderson, who bought the property in the mid-1980s. Anderson built a zoo stocked with 1800–2200 animals including a

pygmy hippopotamus The pygmy hippopotamus or pygmy hippo (''Choeropsis liberiensis'') is a small Hippopotamidae, hippopotamid which is native to the forests and swamps of West Africa, primarily in Liberia, with small populations in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Co ...

and a

rhinoceros A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...

. Other facilities included an indoor equestrian centre, an

bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

runway suitable for a

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...

to land, and resort accommodation. He had intended to stock the group with 200,000 head of cattle but struck financial problems and sold the property in 2003. The group was then acquired by

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

-based barrister Allan Myers for $50 million along with the 80,000 cattle. Myers also acquired Elizabeth Downs, Fish River and Litchfield Stations. The

Australian Agricultural Company The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo; ) is a public-listed Australian company that, as of 2018, owns and operates feedlots and farms covering around of land in Queensland and the Northern Territory, roughly one percent of Australia's land ...

(AACo) offered 105 million to acquire Tipperary and Litchfield stations along with the 60,000 head of cattle in 2009, but its shareholders voted against the acquisition at an extraordinary general meeting held three months later. In 2011, the Australian Agricultural Company (AAco) purchased the Tipperary group's cattle herd of 53,000 head for 26 million, and also entered a one-year agreement to use the station group for

agistment Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment (derived, via Anglo-Norman ''agister'', from the Old French ''gîte">g ...

purposes with options to extend. In 2012, David Warriner, the head of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association, was managing the group, which was stocked with 70,000 cattle raised for live export to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. In September 2014 AAco elected not to exercise their option to continue with the agistment agreement and decided to de-stock and exit the station by June 2015. In March 2015, ex Australian Agricultural Company chief operating officer David Connolly was appointed general manager of the Tipperary Group and took over responsibility for the overall management of the group and the AAco drawdown and exit.

In popular culture

The 2024

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

drama series ''

Territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...

'' was filmed at the station under the name "Desert King", and the station was assigned the fictional name "Marianne Station". Netflix released the series under the name "Territory". During filming many of the employees of the station were used for cattle mustering and station work scenes as well as extras in the production, some with speaking roles. Authenticity of station life was therefore valued and maintained. During production, around 140 of the 180 NT staff lived at the station.

References

{{Coord, 13, 44, 01, S, 131, 02, 49, E, type:landmark_region:AU-NT_dim:300km, display=title Stations in the Northern Territory 1914 establishments in Australia Litchfield National Park

Description

History

In popular culture

See also

References