Wollogorang is located in Northern Territory
Wollogorang
Wollogorang
Location in Northern Territory

17°12′40″S 137°56′53″E / 17.211°S 137.948°E / -17.211; 137.948 (Wollogorang)

Wollogorang Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station straddling the border the Northern Territory and Queensland.[1]

Location

The property is situated approximately 124 kilometres (77 mi) north west of Doomadgee and 180 kilometres (112 mi) west of Burketown. The homestead overlooks Settlement Creek. It has approximately 50 miles (80 km) of frontage onto the Gulf of Carpentaria.[1]

The property is bordered by the Pungalina-Seven Emu Sanctuary[2] and Calvert Hills Station to the west, the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north, the Queensland border to the east and the Waanyi-Garawa Aboriginal Land Trust to the south.[3]

Description

Several watercourses flow through the property including Branch Creek, Settlement Creek, Gold Creek and Running Creek.

Wollogorang occupies an area of 7,057 square kilometres (2,725 sq mi).[4] and is able to carry more than 40,000 head of cattle.[1]

It contains the Wollogorang Important Bird Area.

History

The name Wollogorang in the local Indigenous Australian peoples language means Happy running waters, the name comes from Settlement Creek which runs through the property.[5]

The first Europeans to visit the area was the Ludwig Leichhardt expedition from Queensland to Port Essington in 1845. The lease for the landholding was established in 1881 by the Chisholm family[6] who had come from Wollogorang House near Goulburn. Wollogarang/Wollogorang is a name associated with the Chisholms back to the 1820s, long before their settling of this property.[7] Initially established and stocked in 1883 the property boasts the longest continuous occupation of any property in the Northern Territory as, unlike others, it has never been abandoned since it was first settled.[1] The Anning family purchased the property in 1895 for £3000 after the station manager, Harry Shadforth, had been speared by Aboriginal people.[1]

Copper was discovered on the property in 1899.[8]

The Annings sold the property in about 1906.[1]

An American, A.L. Standberry of Arizona bought the station in 1966.[9]

However, his term was short, as long term owner Paul Zlotkowski first bought the property in the late 1960s. Zlotkowski sold it a few years later to businessman Bela Csidei.[10] Later, after the businessman was arrested on drugs charges in 1978, Zlotkowski bought the property back from its liquidator.

In 2007 a Filipino worker, Pablo Balading, arrived in Australia on a 457 visa to commence work on Amungee Mungee Station. Instead he was taken to Wollogorang where he worked as a farm hand. Balading was harassed by his Australian workmates until he was killed when he fell from a vehicle speeding down a dirt road on the property. He died shortly afterwards and his family was left without any compensation or information on to what had caused his death.[11] The company was fined for not providing a safe workplace for this incident three years later.[12]

The owner in 2006 was still Paul Zlotkowski who had placed it on the market for A$40 million in 2008.[4] However, he did not succeed in selling the station until 2015.[13]

The buyer in 2015 was Chinese businessman Xingfa Ma. In 2020 it was bought by the McMillan family of Cloncurry.[14]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Wollogorang". Sydney Morning Herald. 8 February 2004. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "Pungalina property profile". Australian Wildlife Conservancy. 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "Northern Territory Pastoral Properties" (PDF). Northern Territory Government. 2003. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  4. 1 2 Fiona Cameron (6 November 2008). "Land worth $450m on sale across northern Australia". The Australian. News Limited. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  5. ↑ "Settlement Creek". The Wilderness Society Australia. Archived from the original on 27 May 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  6. ↑ "17°S 138°E Redbank Creek – Queensland by Degrees". Royal Geographical Society of Queensland. 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  7. ↑ "Classified Advertising". The Sydney Gazette And New South Wales Advertiser. Vol. XXVII, no. 1666. New South Wales, Australia. 4 June 1829. p. 3. Retrieved 21 February 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "New Copper Discovery". Northern Territory Times and Gazette. Darwin, Northern Territory: National Library of Australia. 29 September 1899. p. 3. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  9. ↑ "Rancher buys station". The Canberra Times. Vol. 40, no. 11, 471. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 18 May 1966. p. 10. Retrieved 21 February 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ↑ Curtain, Carl. "Wollogorang: Beef industry veteran Paul Zlotkowski tells tales of drugs, death and determination on one of Australia's most remote cattle stations". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  11. ↑ "Death in the Outback". The Age. 28 August 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
  12. ↑ James, Melinda. "Company fined $60K over Filipino worker death". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  13. ↑ Curtain, Carl. "Wollogorang: Beef industry veteran Paul Zlotkowski tells tales of drugs, death and determination on one of Australia's most remote cattle stations". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  14. ↑ "McMillan Family Buys Wollogorang and Wentworth for $53m". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 1 May 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
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