DESPITE having been in the same family for more than 100 years, Oulnina Station, just outside of Mannahill, has continually evolved.
More recently, this evolution has been through owners Maurice and Janet Francis, and sons Mark and Grant, with Grant’s wife Georgie and their sons Jack, Lachie and Henry.
In 1911, Broken Hill butcher Robert Crawford purchased the Oulnina run, which comprised 202,343 hectares. He then divided the land into 11 separate leases and sold them off.
Maurice’s grandfather Joseph Kenworthy from Ascot Vale Station near Broken Hill, NSW, bought the Oulnina block and kept the name.
When Maurice took up running the property in 1966, the station covered 311 square kilometres.
Since that time, three adjoining stations have been bought – Maldorky, Eringa Park, and Benda Dlorah – with the aggregation totalling 1422sqkm.
Maurice said in his first year back at Oulnina, they shore 4500 sheep. In 2015, they shore 27,000 and sold 8500. Maurice said to run that amount of sheep they had to make many improvements on-farm, particularly to better deal with drought.
“I aim to improve all the properties I own, for conservation but also to improve stocking rates,” he said. “Plus being a family business with minimal staff, I wanted them to run as easily as possible.”
In 1982, a devastating drought encouraged Maurice to partake in a ground-breaking water contouring trial with the Department of Agriculture.
“I ripped a lot of land (450ha), which controlled water run off and it has since encouraged other vegetation growth,” he said. “That has worked very well, along with conservative stocking rates to help the country recover.”
The family has also doubled the water supply on Oulnina and Maldorky through water bores and storage tanks.
Solar energy is also used to pump the water, along with the use of many windmills.
“I believe the three things that have really benefited the pastoral industry in recent times have been Japanese motorbikes for their reliability, poly-pipe and solar energy,” he said.
The shearing shed on the station has also seen many changes through the years, once housing up to 40 blade shearers.
“The stands were cut back to 24 machines when hand-pieces came in,” Maurice said. “Back then though, everyone came to Oulnina to get their sheep shorn. Today, there are only six stands.”
There were so many shearers back then, the six-metre long table in the shearers quarters was built within the building.
“It has never seen the light of day,” Janet said.
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