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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-24 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Chowilla Station

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:35): I rise today to talk about a great celebration in the northern part of the Riverland over the weekend, and that was the celebration of the historic Chowilla Station's 150th anniversary. It really was a sight. Not only did people come in their masses to visit the station, but the river was also absolutely laden with all types of river boats—paddle steamers, old wooden ketches, many, many boats in their entirety. It was an absolute picture, and it was a pleasure to be part of that event.

To give a little bit of history of the Chowilla Station, the Robertson family are fifth generation owners of Chowilla Station. The current owners, James and his lovely wife Kerri, and their children Emma and Sophie, were also accompanied by Jock and Liz, James' parents. They are a great family and are part of a great institution looking after an iconic piece of South Australia.

Chowilla Station was settled by Richard Holland in 1864, and the station was later taken on by his three stepsons: John, William and Robert. In 1896 the three brothers divided the land into two separate properties, Calperum and Chowilla, and in 1919 the partnership became Robertson Chowilla Pty Ltd. For over 150 years now it has been a successful grazing enterprise and home to champion racehorses, and it is all a natural landscape out in that beautiful part of the world.

One of the things I did note, before I made my journey up to Chowilla, was that the local shop at Renmark North—one of the favourite homes of the meat pie—said that they counted about 200 cars per hour going past their door. So I took my boat up river, put in at the famous Woolshed Brewery and went up there, and it was an absolute treat to pull up to this magnitude of river boats and masses of people.

For those of you who do not know Chowilla Station, it is about an hour's drive out on the Chowilla Floodplain, and people were up there en masse. There were shearing demonstrations, both modern day and the old blade shearing, there were many blacksmith demonstrations, there were tours through the shearers quarters and the woolshed. They all had displays, and it was a really unique memorabilia-type day.

The great thing about it was that it was organised by a few. It was organised by Deb Alexander and Rob Bowring from the Mannum Dock Museum Board, and they did a great job. A few people came together and brought about 8,000 people up to Chowilla Station to look at what this great piece of country really offers.

Many members would know that the Chowilla Floodplain is a Ramsar site but, just as importantly, the pastoral country that oversees all of that floodplain was on display. There were paddle boat tours and bus tours around the station, and all the amenities. The people were very embracing, and they came from all over Australia. Two ladies, sisters, I spoke to came from Melbourne, and were there to celebrate the 150th anniversary. Their story was that their mother was up there and gave birth to her third child on Chowilla Station. Three days later she died, and was buried on Chowilla Station. They were there, I guess, to pay homage to Chowilla Station and what it meant to their family and the experiences they had.

Many of the people who had visited had previous experience either working on Chowilla or knew of people who had worked at or been a part of Chowilla. It is very much like today with the Robertson family who are continuing that tradition with grazing and being good managers and good land recipients. Some of that land has now been given back to the state government.

I think it is a great testament to Chowilla that, after 150 years, it is a very important piece of South Australia's history. It is also a piece of South Australia's environmental jewellery because not only are they looking after the pastoral side of that property but the environmental regulator is now there for the benefit of the environment.

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