Beautiful Federation homestead the centrepiece of irrigated grazing and cropping property at Wanganella

WHEN Margaret Radeski drove saw the Booabula Station Federation-style homestead, she was sold.

Booabula station Wanganella for sale

WHEN Margaret Radeski drove up the driveway and saw the Booabula Station Federation-style homestead, she was sold.

The house, set against the native timber of the Billabong Creek, still catches her eye each time she drives back in.

WANGANELLA, NSW

BOOABULA STATION

Property: Irrigation/grazing

Size: 6745ha

Auction: June 25, 11am

Price: About $4 million

Agent: Landmark

Contact: James Sides 0427 236 791

And she knows that whoever comes to inspect the station before auction on June 25 will be equally taken by the vista.

It’s just one of the attributes that attracted Margaret and John Radeski to the station, about 50km north of Deniliquin on the plains country.

The Radeskis were moving from a station northeast of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and were looking for something special to continue their farming pursuits.

They found that in the 6745ha Booabula Station, which they have called home for the past 20 years.

In that time, they have added a fancy set of cattle yards that would be just as at home in their northern operation and worked on their watering systems to lift the station’s productivity.

Margaret said one of their biggest achievements was to install a piped water system to all the stock paddocks further out from the creek country.

It has allowed them an efficient and secure source of water for their cattle, and saved time.

“We used to have to pump water from one creek to another to supply some paddocks and it was wasteful,” she said.

“Now we have run the pipeline, the stock have high quality water from the Billabong Creek supplied into tanks and then troughs.”

The Radeskis have run a commercial Angus herd and a small Angus stud to supply bulls for their own use with extras sold to others who were interested.

Margaret said the country was very suitable for cattle, even though the Wanganella district was probably better known for its sheep.

“It’s just beautiful stock country,” she said.

The beauty of Booabula Station, however, is the balance of country.

While some is pastoral grazing area, there is also a deve­loped area where irrigation has been used to grow crops — wheat, barley and canola in winter and rice in summer.

Margaret said there was no reason why cotton could not be grown on the land.

This would be especially attractive when a new cotton gin was built in Hay, 80km away.

Booabula Station has 1372 megalitres of allocation for irrigation and 35 megalitres for stock and domestic use. Nearly 500ha is developed for irrigation.

The Radeskis have also had high quality stands providing pasture hay each year.

This, Margaret said, had proved a God-send when times were dry and stock needed a bit of topping up.

“We always make a lot of pasture hay and it makes you self-sufficient,” she said.

And when the Radeskis came back from a day in the paddock, Margaret said there was nothing better than driving back in and seeing that Federation-style homestead.

“We love the house and I’ve done a lot of work in the garden,” she said.

“When you look out the kitchen window, you can see the Billabong Creek and it’s just an idyllic setting.”

Farm improvements include a three-bedroom manager’s house, steel cattle yards, a machinery shed and woolshed.

Margaret said the time had come to pass on Booabula Station to new owners.

But they would be staying in the district.

“Wanganella is a great community to live in, with something always going on,” she said. “It’s certainly a beautiful spot.”