Anna Creek Shuttering

An Outback legend:

The sunbaked plains of Anna Creek, the world's biggest cattle station, spread seemingly to infinity beneath a gigantic sky. The property, which squats on an area larger than Wales, takes five hours to drive across. The 16,500 cows that normally live there occupy half a square mile of land apiece.

But even that generous grazing allocation is not sufficient at present, with Australia crippled by its worst drought in a century. Anna Creek, tucked away in a remote corner of South Australia, is the latest casualty. The station is being destocked, and next month will close indefinitely – at least, until it rains.

It is only the third time in Anna Creek's history that cows have been cleared from the property, which was founded by Sir Sidney Kidman, known as the "Cattle King", in the late 19th century. Quite simply, there is nothing for them to eat. "We are taking everything off the place and closing it down because it's just too dry," said Randall Crozier, the station manager.

...While some parts of Australia, particularly the eastern cities, have received much-needed downpours in recent months, many rural areas remain parched and desperate for rain. The agricultural industry is suffering badly, with wheat, rice and cattle farmers stretched to the limit. The drought is also affecting the wine industry, with production slashed and prices pushed up.

Last month was the driest May since records began in 1990, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology says the country will need several years of above average rain to recover. The Murray-Darling Basin, the nation's food bowl, where two great rivers meet, has just had its driest autumn on record.

The news that Anna Creek is suspending operations from next month shocked Australians because of the station's fame and the place that it occupies in the country's farming history. It was one of a string of properties established across the continent by Kidman, who became Australia's best-known pastoral landowner.

...Anna Creek was carved out by the pioneers who settled Australia's unforgiving interior in the 19th century. It includes a lake with the longest name in the world – Lake Cadibarrawirracanna, or "Cadi" for short. Rolf Harris once sang of the lake, which is bordered by mulga trees and fed by a creek that is said to be saltier than the Dead Sea.

The southern limit of the station is delineated by the "Dog Fence", which is twice the length of the Great Wall of China and was built to keep dingoes out of sheep-farming country. To the north is William Creek, which claims to be the smallest town in Australia, with a population of 10. The town consists of a few weatherboard houses, a dusty nine-hole golf course, a portable cabin used as a Royal Flying Doctor Service clinic, and a fibrous cement and corrugated iron pub that is the only watering hole for 100 miles.

The pub, an Outback legend, was built in 1887 to quench the thirst of the hard men who drove the bullock teams and camel trains. Today's locals are cattle hands from neighbouring stations, including Anna Creek, some of whom arrive by light plane. William Creek has its own airstrip, and pilots taxi right to the front door of the pub before parking their planes beside it.

...South of Anna Creek is a scorched landscape of rocks and fossilised shells, known as the Moon Plains, which was once covered by an inland sea. The area was used to film some of the Mad Max movies and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Despite the gloomy prospects for the property, caused by rainfall so low it could be measured in drops, S Kidman & Co's chief executive, Greg Campbell, remains determinedly upbeat.

"No drought goes on for ever," he said. "I mean, we'll live through this one and life will return. We are not so disappointed with circumstances that we are considering bailing out of a property like Anna Creek.

"It's a got a long history in the company. And it's in a drought- prone part of Australia. It's a big, vast, arid landscape. And at times it's highly productive, and it will have its productive times again."