North Queensland cattle station fetches record price at auction

A southern Queensland family have snapped up a 11,354ha property with an eight-figure bid through auction.

Ernestina Plains has been sold under the hammer for $14.8m.

A record price has been paid at auction by a southern Queensland cattle farming family for a 11,354ha station in the state’s northwest.

Hemming Farms, operated by Doug and Jacque Hemming, purchased Ernestina Plains under the hammer, ending the 45-year tenure of vendors Gillian and Mark Bryant.

Auctioned at The Precinct in Cloncurry, bidding for the property began at $10m with three of eight registered bidders placing an offer for Ernestina Plains. A winning bid of $14.8m secured the cattle station for Hemming Farms, equivalent to $1304 a hectare.

On a per hectare basis the property is understood to have sold for a record price for the district.

Agents Jim and Tom Brodie handled the sale of Ernestina Plains with the final result exceeding their expectations.

“Not often do you a get a chance to purchase a property with such good improvements where all the hard work has been done and no immediate capital expenditure is required,” Jim Brodie said.

“The exceptional infrastructure and mix of country, makes Ernestina Plains a very attractive blue-ribbon property.”

Ernestina Plains, located between Cloncurry and Julia Creek in the tightly held Oorindi district, was sold with 962 head of Caiwarra-blood Brahman cattle. This included 473 cows, 125 calves, 11 bulls, 132 heifers and 221 steers.

Gillian and Mark Bryant had owned Ernestina Plains for more than four decades, offering the property to the market with plans to retire.

The station has open pebbly red chocolate downs country growing Mitchell and Flinders grasses. There is also well-established buffel grass along the Fullarton River channels and other creek systems.

Infrastructure includes a three-bedroom home, a nine-bedroom quarters, steel cattle yards and numerous sheds.

The sale of Ernestina Plains is the second major multimillion dollar sale of a cattle station in the Cloncurry region in recent weeks, following the $47.5m deal for Lord Cattle company’s 233,000ha May Downs station, sold under the hammer to McMillian Pastoral.

The McMillian family’s pastoral company is one of the largest in Australia with a two million-hectare portfolio that now includes eight stations in Queensland and one in the Northern Territory.