Old Wilpena Station Trail

Department for Environment and Heritage Flinders Ranges National Park Old Wilpena Station Living With Land Interpretive Trail www.parks.sa.gov.au LIVING WITH LAND INTERPRETIVE TRAIL OLD WILPENA STATION For information about features of the ld Wilpena Station is one of the most scenically spectacular trail turn to page 10. O pastoral settlements in South Australia. A working station for 135 years, Old Wilpena Station slipped into retirement in 1985. The settlement is now a tranquil archive of pastoral history. Old Wilpena Station is also an important Aboriginal heritage site. Wilpena Pound and the Wilpena Station lands have enduring cultural significance for the Adnyamathanha people of the Flinders Ranges. Wilpena Government House c.1896 "Wilpena Station is one of the most significant pastoral sites in South Australia because it has one of the most continuous and best preserved histories of use in a remote setting… Almost all significant stations with a comparable history are now in ruins. " NPWSA planning document 1989 Aboriginal people, European settlers and their descendants share the pastoral heritage of the Flinders Ranges. The self-guiding ‘Living With Land’ Interpretive Trail explores the themes of self-sufficiency, improvisation and survival on the remote and isolated pastoral settlements of the Flinders Ranges. 1 ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND PASTORAL HERITAGE “All of my brothers and sisters used to help Dad with the fencing." Eileen McKenzie boriginal people played a vital classers, vermin controllers, cooks Aand largely forgotten role in and domestic servants. During the development of South World War II many stations relied Australia's pastoral industry. solely upon Aboriginal labour. Aboriginal guides travelled into the Station interior of South employment Australia with meant that explorers like Aboriginal Edward Eyre families could during the early maintain colonial years. They contact with located springs and traditional country. influence the siting of fence-lines, sustained by an enduring spiritual soaks where base camps Cultural sites could be dams and roads to avoid damage to relationship with country and a would be established and from visited and customary traditional sites. long involvement in the pastoral which exploration parties could obligations maintained. Station industry, the Adnyamathanha extend their reach. Aboriginal rations could be supplemented by Station jobs were harder to find in people are now returning to the guides also found water for wild harvest, including rabbits from the 1950s. Increased mechanisation, land as owners and managers of ambitious settlers like the Browne the 1890s. Children could learn unstable markets and rising pastoral properties in the central brothers who later took up the first about country as they travelled with production costs cut demand for and northern Flinders Ranges. pastoral runs in the central Flinders their families. Stockmen, fencers, hired labour. Employment on Ranges in 1851. and much later, road-builders, could pastoral properties continues to decline today. European settlers claimed the The Protector of Aborigines “Adnyamathanha people did not springs and waterholes that had wrote of the Adnyamathanha Many Aboriginal groups all but measure reward for work in purely sustained Aboriginal families people in 1889, that: disappeared from the settled areas monetary terms. Food, access to and the animals they hunted. Within of the colony soon after contact. But land, permission to bring relatives 15 years the infant pastoral industry “They are also extensively in the pastoral country of the or a large family group onto the had destroyed the native economy. employed on cattle and sheep Flinders Ranges, Adnyamathanha property were also considered Aboriginal families became stations in the district; in fact, people survived as a distinct benefits of cooperating with the dependent upon ration depots for some stations are worked almost linguistic and cultural group. pastoralists. " their survival. entirely by them. They are Dispossessed after contact, but Buck McKenzie exceedingly useful and reliable Aboriginal people adapted to a among stock, many of them are changed world in a remarkably excellent shearers.” short time. They learnt the language of the Europeans. They applied old skills used in tracking and hunting, to new situations and became shepherds, messengers and stockmen. Aboriginal men and women built fences and dams, drilled bores, chopped wood, and shore sheep. They worked as scrub pullers, butchers, trackers, wool 2 3 EUROPEAN SETTLERS AND PASTORAL HERITAGE The Browne brothers‘ investments knees, forcing many lessees to yielded good returns. They abandon their runs. purchased property all over South Australia. In one year, they were the After the Great Drought , an inquiry colony's biggest exporters of wool to into the effects of drought on the Britain. Northern Pastoral Runs was commissioned. Minimum stocking Scottish and Irish immigrants rates were re-evaluated and levies provided labour on the early runs. reduced. Pastoral leases were Married couples proved more increased from 14 to 21 years. For reliable than single men. Cooks, the first time pastoralists were blacksmiths and storekeepers lived provided with incentives to carry and worked on the head stations. out improvements and manage Shepherds, stockmen, woodcutters stock more sustainably. When wire outh Australia Settlers with the and hut builders ranged across the arrived on the runs in the 1870's, Swas founded necessary cash vast properties. Teamsters carried pastoralists began to erect internal upon freedom. took up vast produce and stores between the fences. They could then divide their Strong tracts of land as runs and trading centres. flocks and herds, rest paddocks and egalitarian Occupation better manage their springs and principles Leases. Fortunes were made and lost on the bores. defined the new Undeterred by early pastoral runs of the Flinders colony. Both the grim reports from Ranges. The industry was troubled Today the pastoral community can ambitious and the explorers returning by high cartage costs, a shortage of draw on 150 years of experience. disadvantaged could from expeditions to the labour, recurrent droughts, conflict Science, technology and an evolving prosper in a self-sustaining society interior, some financed private with Aborigines, lack of fencing wisdom shaped by the land, now of farmers, tradesmen and expeditions. Small parties travelled materials, stock losses to Dingoes guide the pastoral industry in the merchants. Money raised from land into the Flinders Ranges and and a dramatic loss of land Flinders Ranges. sales would be used for assisted beyond in search of reliable waters condition from overstocking. The migration to ensure an adequate that could support a grazing Great Drought of 1864 – 66 brought supply of labour. industry. From 1851 pastoral runs the infant pastoral industry to its were founded as new 14 year What worked on paper, failed on Pastoral Leases were introduced. the ground. The British architects of the scheme had no understanding of Two ambitious young English how local climate, poor soils and doctors, William and John Browne, isolation would impact upon their emigrated to the colony during the settlement scheme. Nor did they 1840s. Using their inheritance they appreciate that the land already had financed the establishment of an indigenous population. several pioneering pastoral runs on Unpredictable climate, extreme South Australia's 'Waste Lands of summer temperatures, high the Crown'. They hired young transport costs, food shortages and energetic managers with half-share conflict with displaced Aboriginal interests in the runs they managed. people, challenged the dream. The "…men who probably could never scheme went bankrupt and the have advanced beyond ordinary Crown took control of the colony circumstances, become in a few five years after it was founded. years possessed of great wealth" William Jessop 1862 4 5 LEASES AND LESSEES HENRY STRONG PRICE PIONEERING THE WILPENA RUN ilpena Station was a working station for 135 years. In the 1860s the ealthy investors and 2000 cattle died on the Wilpena Run Wrun covered more than 800 square miles (2070 square kilometres). Wambitious young managers during what has been called the Wilpena Pound became a separate lease in 1899. In 1923 the station was shaped the early pastoral industry Great Drought. carved up into five separate leases. What had been the Homestead Paddock, of the young colony. English became the new Wilpena Station, comprising 58 square miles (93 square doctors William and John Browne, In 1867 Henry Strong Price kilometres). In 1988 the Wilpena Station Lands were added to the Flinders financed the Wonoka, Arkaba, addressed an Inquiry into the Ranges National Park. Wilpena and Aroona runs. To each impacts of drought on the new manager they offered a half Northern Runs. "I now consider 1851 Waste Lands of the Crown Henry Strong Price share interest, a powerful incentive my run greatly overstocked, Lease (Pastoral) No 84 (154 square miles) to expand the runs. but I did not before …" 1853 Transfer of Pastoral Lease WJ & JH Browne No 84 Henry Strong Price managed the The carrying capacity for the 1855 Transfer of Pastoral Lease No 84 Henry Strong Price Wilpena Run for three years. He Wilpena Run had originally been set 1868 New 20 year leases issued Henry Strong Price then sold his share back to his at 120 000 sheep. Price advised that Pastoral Lease No 1590 & WJ & JH Browne financiers.

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