It is said the best way to care for something is to give it a purpose.
The Tindall family is making sure the historic Darr River Downs homestead at Morella, 70km north of Longreach, lives on for many years.
Built some time in the 1870s, the locally quarried sandstone structure is cherished by Cam and Sharon, along with the heritage-listed outbuildings that have seen it all – Cobb and Co coach passengers, striking shearers, and people seeking refuge from fire and flood.
Listed on Queensland’s Heritage Register in June 2003, the complex, consisting of the main house, a maid’s room and store room, and an office plus saddle room, stands intact amidst a garden that complements it status.
If you were to explore the homestead and its surrounds you would come across not only the remains of a vibrant clay target club but the relics of a woolscour that is reputed to be the first erected in that part of the world, sometime during the 1880s.
Darr River Downs was one of three big stations – Corona and Evesham were the other two – that operated as a mini-town for a thriving wool industry prior to the turn of the century.
In 1890, it was running approximately 135,550 sheep, and in 1893, the property sent away 1725 bales of wool.
According to station records, a woolshed was erected in 1883. It was a natural magnet in the 1891 shearers’ strike, when a group tried to burn it down.
Although they didn’t succeed, a new woolshed was erected in the early 1900s, reputed to have formerly been a temporary pavilion/annexe for the 1880 Melbourne Exhibition, which was dismantled and shipped to Rockhampton, then transported to Darr River Downs where it was re-erected as the woolshed.
An Archibald Fisken, a prominent Melbourne businessman who was involved with Darr River Downs in the late 1890s, was listed in the records as an Exhibition commissioner, and it’s speculated that it was his involvement that saw one of the annexes acquired for the property.
It’s these stories and more that have been preserved by the current tenants.
“We don’t want it to fall down,” Cam says. “We want our kids to love it too.”
An exploration of the outbuildings finds saddles and pack gear helping tell the story of a past filled with hopeful aspirations, be they shearer or squatter.
Stone stands the test of time
Wholesale renovations in 1987, including delicate stonemasonry work, have ensured the ongoing health of the grand old outback homestead.
Cam and Sharon moved from a small two-bedroom cottage at Blackall with their three small children in 1989, and recall the huge difference.
“It was like walking into a mansion,” Cam said. “We’d only been here a week, when Sharon asked me if there was such a thing as a ride-on vacuum cleaner.”
Sharon herself says that its easy-cleaning properties is one of the home’s good features.
It’s hard to believe that would be the case for a building that’s a full 105 square metres but the wraparound gauze verandah provides a barrier to the worst of nature’s excesses.
It also makes for a cool or warm haven depending on the season – air conditioning is rarely required in a home where the temperature drops noticeably when you walk in the door.
Sandstone the key to western liveability
Locally-quarried sandstone is the key to the liveability of the historic Darr River Downs homestead.
The material was in plentiful supply for early Queensland builders who were keen to establish new outposts of civilisation in the far reaches of the fledgling state.
As Cam says, sandstone is everywhere.
“You hit it and fall off your motorbike all the time,” he says, a claim many wish they could make as they aspire to similar liveability, as the stones cool the temperature down by degrees.
Conversely, when it’s winter and the southerly wind is blowing across the open paddocks, the walls capture the heat from the open fire in the living area and keep it in.
“It works both ways,” Cam said.
He is also a fan of the person who designed the gauze enclosure with a ledge that’s perfect for seating.
It means that people can sit on both sides of the verandahs and face each other, making for a friendlier atmosphere.
Drought took its toll
Every home is enhanced by a garden and it’s the same story at Darr River Downs.
In the early days of settlement, Chinese workers built nine of their famous weirs across various creeks on the property, one of them 1200 metres long.
They helped capture some of the flow in the Darr River, which the homestead is sited close to, before it runs into the Thomson River, some of which is used to water the luxurious lawn that frames the house.
While the garden was well-established on most sides when Cam and Sharon and their small family arrived in 1989, they walked out the back door to dirt, which Sharon attributes to the home renovations that took place in preceding years.
She set to and planted a grove of eucalypts, and is reaping the dividends now.
The home’s other entrance boasts the station brand – C tent W, remembering long-standing owners Coleman and Watt – in an archway that is garlanded by flowering vines.
A tennis court takes pride of place to one side of the greenery, and there’s also an underground tank on the grounds.
A full 8.5m long, 4.5m deep and 3m wide with an arched top, Cam believes it was a water reservoir.
“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a cellar,” he said. “It’s constant temperature, 23 degrees, is probably too warm to store wine.”
The garden is Sharon’s favourite place, along with being able to look out over it from the verandah at the end of the day, but it was nearly all lost in the drought just past.
By April last year, the situation on the property was so dire that the decision was made to take all the remaining stock on the property, 1100 cows, on the road, when agistment proved impossible to find.
The trek took them as far as Mitchell before winter rain began to fall and they could start turning around.
By the time they returned mid-September, the garden was in a very sorry state.
Sharon set about re-establishing the lawn, which is looking healthy once again.
“The place was rundown when we came here, but we’ve made it a home for our three children, and we were lucky to inherit a home this good,” Cam said.