Anna Plains Station
Location in Western Australia
Anna Plains Station is a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Anna Plains Station is a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The station is situated on the Western Australian coast 250 kilometres (155 mi) south of Broome. It lies in the Shire of Broome in the Kimberley region and in the Dampierland bioregion. It is 3,600 square kilometres (1,390 sq mi) in area and runs over 20,000 head of cattle. [1] Anna Plains is operating under the Crown Lease number CL56-1982 and has the Land Act number LA3114/1154.
The property adjoins Eighty Mile Beach, which is one of Australia's most important sites for migratory waders, and is listed under the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance. That part of the station subject to periodic flooding forms part of the 3,337-square-kilometre (1,288 sq mi) Mandora Marsh and Anna Plains Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for supporting large numbers of waders and waterbirds. [2]
The traditional owners of the area is the Karajarri people to the north and the Njangamarda Kundal and Njangamarda Uparuka peoples to the south. [3]
In 1903 the station was owned by the partners, Percy and Felde, who went to court over selling the station in 1905. [4]
The MacRobertson Expedition visited the area in June 1928, and described the station as being over 1 million acres in extent and famed for its shorthorn cattle. It was also noted that the expedition wireless was a source of great curiosity to the station's Indigenous employees. [5]
Mr F. S. McMullen was the station owner in 1933. He petitioned the minister of agriculture to dispose of 10,000 head of cattle with a view to changing over to sheep. The request was made as the owner was unable to move his stock north through country infested with bush tick and new restrictions meant he was unable to move his cattle south because of pleuro-pneumonia and buffalo fly infestations. [6]
The station was subject to heavy rains in 1934 with 9 inches (229 mm) of rain falling during the course of a storm, leaving the country under water for hundreds of miles. A passenger aeroplane flying from Port Hedland to Broome that was caught in the storm was forced to land at the station. [7] At least 800 head were overlanded to the Meekatharra sales yard later the same year and were the first cattle in the state to be subject to the Turner test for pleuro-pneumonia prior to sale. [8] The station was stocked with approximately 10,000 head of cattle at this time. [9]
In 1935 a trapper, Daniel Joseph O'Brien, was found murdered near the station property. His body was exhumed from a shallow grave, as was the body of an Aboriginal man, and both were taken back to the homestead. [10]
Following a cyclone in 1936, the station manager found the carcasses of 7 mules, 49 horses and 102 head of cattle that had been swept into the sea and drowned. [11] During the storm it was estimated that 3.5 inches (89 mm) of rain fell; damage included several windmills being blown over and a part of the homestead being destroyed. [12]
A drought in 1945 left the cattle in very bad condition, with many dying. [13]
1,100 head of cattle were taken overland from the station to the railway at Meekatharra in 1948 by the drover Georg Solvay. [14]
1,200 head of cattle from the station were loaded at Eighty Mile Beach in 1954 onto the LST landing craft Wan Kuo in the first shipment of its kind from Western Australia. The cattle were penned in batches of 15 along with about 10 tons of feed in readiness to be shipped to Manila. [15]
In 1959 the Talgarno village was built on land excised from the station. Talgarno was a British government project to test the accuracy of Blue Streak missiles fired from Woomera. The village included housing, a hospital, swimming pools and a cinema. [16]
A number of Indigenous people, including artist Big John Dodo and his wife Rosie Munroe, were evicted from Anna Plains in the 1960s following a change in the station's management. [17]
On 1 February 1978, Cyclone Vern made landfall near Anna Plains with winds of about 145 km/h (90 mph), and caused flooding and minor damage in the region. [18]
In 2010 the station was leased by the Anna Plains Cattle Company Pty Ltd. under the management of John Stoate.
The Murchison River is the second longest river in Western Australia. It flows for about 820 km (510 mi) from the southern edge of the Robinson Ranges to the Indian Ocean at Kalbarri. The Murchison-Yalgar-Hope river system is the longest river system in Western Australia. It has a mean annual flow of 208 gigalitres, although in 2006, the peak year on record since 1967, flow was 1,806 gigalitres.
Eighty Mile Beach also spelled Eighty-mile Beach or 80-mile Beach, and formerly called 90-mile Beach, lies along the north-west coast of Western Australia about half-way between the towns of Broome and Port Hedland. It is a beach some 220 kilometres (140 mi) in length, forming the coastline where the Great Sandy Desert approaches the Indian Ocean. It is one of the most important sites for migratory shorebirds, or waders, in Australia, and is recognised as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
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Mandora Marsh, also known as Mandora Salt Marsh, is a complex and diverse wetland system in Western Australia close to Eighty Mile Beach, and included in the Eighty Mile Beach Ramsar Site. It lies at the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert bioregion and within the Mandora Station pastoral lease. The marsh is part of the 3337 km2 Mandora Marsh and Anna Plains Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for supporting large numbers of waders and waterbirds.
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