Blanchewater Station

Blanchewater Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the far north of South Australia.

Blanchewater
Location in South Australia

Description

It is situated approximately 134 kilometres (83 mi) north east of Lyndhurst and 236 kilometres (147 mi) south west of Innamincka. The MacDonnell River traverses the property and flows into Lake Blanche. A large waterhole on Mount Hopeless Creek is also situated to the east and once operated as an outstation. The Strzelecki Creek also flows through the property all the way to the northern Flinders Ranges are found to the south of the station.[1]

The first European to visit to the area was Benjamin Babbage in 1856 who named the area after Governor McDonnell's wife. George Goyder then surveyed the area in 1857 and John Baker then took up a 200 square miles (518 km2) lease and stocked the property with cattle in 1858.[2]

Augustus Charles Gregory and his party arrived at Blanchewater in 1858 trekking in from the north east from what was believed to be trackless desert and impassable salt lakes. The group had followed the Strzelecki Creek proving it to be the best way to travel through the interior from the Pacific to the Southern Ocean.[3]

Harry Redford and his accomplices George Dewdney and William Rooke stole between 600 and 1,000 cattle from Bowen Downs Station in Queensland. The men then overlanded the stock approximately 1,300 kilometres (808 mi) down Cooper Creek to outback South Australia. The trek took over three months and the men sold the stock for £5000 to Blanchewater Station.[4] Station employees tracked the herd and Redford was eventually arrested for the crime.

Baker died in 1872 and the executors of the estate sold the 1,050 square miles (2,719 km2) property stocked with 1,000 horses and 2,5000 cattle to E. M. Bagot. Blanchewater and the other five properties of Bakers including Wirrabunna, Peninsula and Lake Albert sold for a total of £130,000,[5]

The property was owned by Thomas Elder in 1874.[6]

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See also

References
  1. Bert Bolton (2012). Stories of the Outback. Brolga Publishing. ISBN 9781922036278.
  2. "Blanchewater Station". Flinders Range Research. 2011. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  3. "Strzelecki Creek National Heritage Place, Strzelecki Tk, Innamincka, SA, Australia". Australian Heritage Database. 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  4. "Harry Redford". Muttaburra. 2013. Archived from the original on 14 June 2005. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  5. "Sale of Station properties and stock". South Australian Register. Adelaide, South Australia: National Library of Australia. 31 August 1872. p. 4. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  6. "English Agricultural News". South Australian Register. Adelaide, South Australia: National Library of Australia. 12 June 1874. p. 5. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
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