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Sydney University Vet students undertake cattle placements at Greylands.

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:05:09 GMT

In May 2025, Greylands signed up to take Sydney University vet students for cattle farm placements. Some proactive Sydney University vet students took the initiative to contact us through our website and enquired if Greylands would consider having vet students for training placements. After considering the logistics, we agreed this was a great idea. We welcomed the first vet students to Greylands on 7th July 2025 and the second group of students came to Greylands the week of 21 July 2025. Our third student placement was the week of 29th September 2025. We trust they all had an enjoyable time full of learning opportunities to help further their development as Australia's future vets.

Tweety and Natalie who came to Greylands the week of 7th July 2025 summarised their week as follows:

"Our Unforgettable Week at Greylands – by Tweety and Natalie, University of Sydney Vet Students:

We were truly honoured to be the first University of Sydney veterinary students to complete our industry placement at Greylands! Arriving at the start of calving season, our days began early with cattle monitoring, keeping a close watch on newborn calves, and assessing paddock conditions. It was an incredible hands-on learning opportunity that we'll never forget. From the moment we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by Ian, Margaret, and Steve, whose hospitality and knowledge made us feel right at home. We were introduced to the farm's layout and operations and were even invited to sit in on the weekly business meeting—a valuable experience that gave us insight into the decision-making and management behind a successful cattle enterprise. One of the highlights of the week was the opportunity to visit several other farms in the area, thanks to the wonderful network Greylands has in the community. These visits broadened our exposure to different cattle operations and enriched our learning tremendously.

Throughout the week, we were actively involved in a wide range of veterinary and husbandry tasks. These included rectal and vaginal examinations, drug administration, ear tagging, drenching, vaccination, and marking. We even had the unique opportunity to castrate a calf—a first for both of us.

Another standout experience was attending a bull sale. This eye-opening event gave us valuable insight into how livestock auctions operate. We were fascinated by the silent bidding codes and the strategy behind buyer interactions. A particularly memorable and touching moment was when Ian and Margaret kindly invited our visiting family from Hong Kong on a buggy tour of the farm. It was a very special experience for them and something we are incredibly grateful for. We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Ian and Margaret for the engaging discussions that covered everything from general farm management to specific aspects of cattle health and welfare. And a big thank you to Steve, the farm manager, for sharing so much of his practical knowledge, patiently teaching us about cattle and farm operations, and showing us around the region. We’ll never forget the delicious meal at his family’s takeaway shop—it was such a treat! Our placement at Greylands was not only educational but also deeply meaningful. Thank you for making it such a welcoming and memorable experience.”

Jemma and Leeanna who came to Greylands the week of 21st July 2025 summarised their week as follows:

"This July, we had the invaluable opportunity to undertake our university placement with Greylands, where we were immersed in the daily workings of a commercial beef operation. This placement allowed us to further develop both our practical skills and industry knowledge. Throughout the week, we participated in a variety of hands-on activities not often practiced during our coursework, such as mustering and calf marking. This enhanced our practical competency and confidence in handling livestock. We also engaged in meaningful discussions about industry practices and challenges, which further broadened our understanding. This experience was enriched by off-site visits to other beef properties, the local cattle saleyards, a dairy operation, and a beef abattoir in Singleton. The saleyards visit offered us a perspective on livestock marketing, while the dairy operation provided insights into herd management systems. The abattoir visit was particularly impactful, where the on-site veterinarian detailed her responsibilities in a career pathway that we were not previously aware of. She also highlighted the importance of animal welfare and the veterinarian’s role in the production chain. Overall, this placement deepened our appreciation for the complexities of cattle farming and provided us with significant exposure to the workplace. We are grateful for this opportunity and the knowledge gained from Ian, Marg, Steve and others during our time at Greylands."

Pascale Pinn came to Greylands the week of 29th September 2025.

" I had such a fun week experiencing and learning about beef farming at the beautiful Greylands. The week kicked off with prepping the brand-new yards for calf marking and heading out to muster in cows and calves. I observed and was involved in tagging, branding, vaccinating and castrating these calves. Later in the week we selected bulls to go out with cows for joining and went to visit the local saleyards, both of which were super interesting. Steve and Ian are amazingly knowledgeable and passionate, so we discussed all sorts of beef farm management aspects from pasture and feed to calving and buying livestock. It all made me even more motivated and inspired to work with cattle in the future. I loved that there was something new to do and learn every day and am particularly grateful for how welcoming and helpful Ian, Marg and Steve were. Thank you so so much!"

Bees at Greylands

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 08:42:30 GMT

Bees set up a hive in a hole in the weatherboards at the Greylands homestead in 2022

On 25th September 2022 a swarm of European Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera) formed over a hole in the weatherboards of the laundry section of the Greylands homestead. By evening of that day, the bees had all moved inside the hole and started to form a hive between the outside weatherboards and the inside panelling. Ever since, we have seen bees coming and going out the hole in the weatherboards. In Summer or on warmer days, you can smell the honey. With a stethoscope listening to the wall from inside you can hear the bees buzzing between the inside and outside boards.

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/insects-and-other-invertebrates/invasive-bees

Below is a photo of the initial swarm on the day they first appeared.

The video below is of the day the bees arrived: 25th September 2022

Above: the bees coming and going from outside to their hive between the boards since they moved in, in 2022 and when activity abruptly reduced (August 2025).

Above: at the end of August 2024 a new swarm of bees moved into the laundry. These bees had to be removed, but we left the other bees as they were, coming and going from the outside hole in the weatherboards.

Above: as of August 2025, we noticed the bee activity abruptly seemed to diminish. There now seem to be hardly any bees coming and going. So we had a look up the ladder and saw honeycomb now obscuring the entrance through the weatherboards. It remains to be seen whether or not the bees have formed a new hive in a new location. If so we'll likely take the opportunity to seal up the entrance. It's been a fascinating process over three years observing their activity. Given several of us have been stung we're assuming they are European bees (as opposed to Australian bush bees which don't sting).

Previous steam train days and cattle at Greylands

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:10:45 GMT

There has been a recent series on the TV channel NBN bringing back to life some of Singleton's history, including the st eam train days. The above video is some of the footage of the Hunter Valley steam train aired on that NBN series. After seeing some of the series, Ian recalls, regarding his father Allan Bailey's farming days at Greylands, "I can remember as a small child, going up to the station to watch our cattle from Gunnedah arriving. Unfortunately one beast went down and had to be winched out. The cattle were mustered out to Greylands!"

The shortest distance by road currently, from Singleton railway station to Greylands is 26km, so it would have been even further than that to muster the cattle around the edge of the Singleton township and across the Hunter River before following the road out to Greylands - not a short muster.

Cattle also used to be sent by steam train to the abattoir at Waratah, Newcastle.

Cattle yards renovation

christinamatt@icloud.com (Matt Bailey) — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 05:26:29 GMT

Updating cattle yards to meet our cattle yard work needs

The main working cattle yards were built over 100 years ago in their current location. Various parts of the yards have been replaced over the years. Initially this was with wooden post and rail. The newer style cattle yards are now metal and are very strong and durable, galvanised to protect against rust. After a lot of hard work by the Wilkinsons, the older wooden yards have just been replaced with all metal panels, with particular upright structural posts cemented in place. Removing the majority of the yards during a period of heifer calving presented some challenges, but we now have a second working cattle crush at our loading yards. This was our backup to be used for any calving difficulties while the main yards were completed.

Below is a video of the yards just prior to the current renovation, with a mix of metal cattle race leading up to the cattle crush, along with some of the original hardwood posts and rails.

Below: the yards all completed, together with concrete water troughs. A number of the metal posts are concreted into the ground the help structural strength and durability. Concrete has been laid around the water troughs to avoid pugging from hooves. There are a number of new pens with a new design that will considerably help sorting and separating cattle on the big cattle working days.

African Olives at Greylands

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:15:42 GMT

An aggressively spreading noxious weed in the Hunter Valley

https://www.lls.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1142695/african-olive.pdf

African Olives used to be used as garden hedges in a lot of farming federation houses in the Hunter Valley. Unfortunately they grow so well in this climate that they are becoming a major noxious weed in the Hunter Valley and other parts of NSW. Once it was realised, years ago, how widespread they were spreading, African Olive garden hedges were quickly removed but by then spread had become extensive.

Most farms in the region are having to put in significant resources to try to curtail the spread of African Olives. We have also had to continue control of them for several decades at Greylands.

The following map shows the extent of spread of African Olives throughout NSW.

https://trade.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a62b0f927ca441f1ba60b2dbfde5e9be&groupfilter={%22WeedName%22:[%22African%20olive%22]}

Birds eat the seed and then spread it far and wide through their droppings. African olives very commonly grow at the base of gum trees where birds roost.

The plant itself looks like the European olive bush, although the seed it produces is not edible for humans. After years of growth they can become very large and then produce many seeds, furthering their spread.

Given the plants mature and produce viable fruit at five years and grow up to 15 m high and can potentially live more than 100 years, the problem of African Olives at Greylands is unfortunately here to stay. Eradicating them would be impossible without significant government resources. However ongoing efforts to control them will be vital.

Cody the legendary Greylands horse

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 07:42:17 GMT

Surviving to an age of 38 years, he gave both service and pleasure to many people.

Cody came to Greylands in the late 1980's . We were told he was around age 7 at the time - born early 1980's. Cody was a reliable horse, safe for many riders to have their first horse ride. He was also ridden on many cattle musters over the years.

Throughout his 38 years, Cody withstood many weather extremes - from frost in Winter to 45 degrees Celsius in Summer. He weathered the elements in thunderstorms, hail, windstorms, flooding rains, extreme droughts and enjoyed many good seasons too.

Many Greylands visitors will have very fond memories of Cody - either patting him, feeding him vegetable, fruit or bread treats or going for a ride on him.

Towards the end of his life he had special treatment living out his days and was no longer ridden once he got older. He had nutritional supplement horse feed and a rug to keep him warm in winter. At the end of 2020 sadly his age caught up with him and he had to be euthanised. While we do not know exactly when he was born, incredibly his age when he died in 2020 was around 38 ! This is a very long life for a horse. Cody had a great life at Greylands and was a dearly loved part of Greylands for many years. He gave farm service and pleasure to many people.

Floods at Greylands

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 03:55:28 GMT

When Goorangoola Creek becomes a raging torrent

In other blogs, the impact of droughts at Greylands has been described. Over the years we have also had some major floods. A lot of the more extreme flood events we have had, have been part of the well described Australian 'East Coast Lows'. Those events draw in moisture from the Pacific Ocean, causing torrential rain, often for several days, bringing rain from the coast towards inland areas. Our big flood events are nearly always during the 'La Nina' periods, associated with greater than average rainfall for the East Coast of Australia.

In February 1955, Greylands owner Ian Bailey, his sister and mother experienced first hand the biggest flood of the past 100 years in Singleton, after the Hunter River broke its banks and flooded the majority of the Singleton township. The Hunter Valley has a vast area of land that drains further up the valley into the Hunter River. Singleton, on a very flat plain, with the Hunter River on the edge of the town, has been prone to flooding during the biggest flood events.

The video link below is of a historic news video in relation to the 1955 Hunter River flood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4loGVxRPUAA

Ian, aged 10 at the time, along with his sister Lorna and mother Elsie, had to climb onto a 'lowboy' wardrobe, as the water rose higher. Allan Bailey (Ian and Lorna's father) was 20km away at Greylands at the time - the homestead at Greylands was built at a site elevated enough from the creek that it will never be at risk of riverine flooding. So while Allan himself was safe from floodwaters at the time, he couldn't leave to help, due to being flooded in at Greylands.

Ian recounts memories of the February 1955 flood in Singleton and their rescue from the floodwaters, "Mum managed to find the drawer beside the kitchen sink which was underwater, and struggled to open it, as the wood was now swelling. Anyway she got it open and could feel for the butcher’s knife. I plunged it through the plaster ceiling and cut a jagged ‘square’ hole, that we might each fit through, above the lowboy we were all sitting on. Once inside the ceiling (if we could achieve it) we knew that if it still kept rising we would be doomed. No one would know we were inside, and I would be unlikely to be able to lift the corrugated iron and get us out on top of the roof. There had been a secondary rapid water rise and this was our plan, anyway. The rise halted, and rescues were getting underway on day 3 and a boat pulled up and secured to the brick support of the side verandah, and we were all loaded. Mum, Lorna, cousin Sue, Great Aunt Belle and me and the boat headed at flood water pace along York St and pulled in on top of Singleton High School steps. Boy those power wires had looked close. We were all sitting at desks in various classrooms on the top floor and then there were helicopters and Army ducks about continuing the rescues."

That 1955 flood resulted in numerous deaths, especially in Maitland, further downstream.

Pictured below, people escaping to the safety of their roof to be rescued in the 1955 Singleton flood. Photo on display, remembering the 1955 Singleton flood, 70th anniversary at the Singleton Library, 2025.

Photo below is of Ian's uncle's pharmacy (Chapman Chemist) in Singleton, becoming inundated by floodwaters in 1955 (compared to a more recent photo of the same spot). Photo courtesy of Singleton Public Library Archive - on display at Singleton Library 2025, remembering Singleton 1955 flood, 70th anniversary.

Following the historic 1955 flood, Singleton and Maitland invested significantly in building a flood levee to help protect the main residential areas from future flooding. There have been numerous floods since then that have shown the value of the levee and the levee has been further added to at various times since the 1955 flood.
https://flooddata.ses.nsw.gov.au/flood-projects/singleton-audit-of-flood-levees

The video below demonstrates the Singleton flood levee at work protecting the majority of Singleton during a major flood in July 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJgDQckUeo

2025 photo below of part of the Singleton flood levee that diverts floodwaters away from the town, during major flooding.

Crossing flooded creeks can involve significant risk and gradually the local council has been converting the multiple causeway crossings along Goorangoola Rd to bridge crossings. However, there are still numerous creek crossing causeways, often with water flowing over the road, heading past Greylands towards Goorangoola.

It doesn't take much of a flood to make the causeway crossing across Goorangoola Creek unpassable at Greylands. If needed, we can always get out by going out a back way through the paddocks in a 4 wheel drive vehicle, avoiding the creek crossing. Unless a flood is very small, creek crossing stock fencing tends to get washed out by the flood, requiring repairs as soon as the creek goes down again. The hard-working Wilkinsons have repaired flood damaged fences after floods countless times over the years. During big floods, there can be land damage including occasional land slips. Sudden torrential rain can cause flash floods which can result in rapid creek rises and erosion. Getting around paddocks can get harder with bogging risk in mud. Various gastrointestinal cattle worms can occur more readily in wet conditions.
Despite the challenges of floods and the extra work it creates for the hard-working Wilkinson team with fence repairs, thankfully what follows is good grass growth and plenty of drinking water for stock. That sure beats drought conditions!

'Lucky' the drought survivor.

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 08:49:21 GMT

Many will still vividly remember the severe drought of 2019, reaching its peak in early 2020. Alongside the drought, at that time Australia also faced some of its worst bushfires in living memory. The drought finally broke in the first half of 2020.

Greylands has an amazing calf survival story from that time.

The drought in 2019 was more extreme than any other we had seen before. Grass was running out. Water was running out. Even drought-resistant native gum trees were dying. The abattoirs were over-laden, due to so many cattle farmers being left with no other option but to sell their cattle to avoid cattle dying due to the drought. There was very little rain throughout the entirety of 2019, so when the Summer heat hit at the end of 2019, still with no rain, the situation became dire.

This was the state of Goorangoola Creek at that time.

We had 50 cows that had already calved and their calves had been sold some time before. These cows were preg-tested in calf (PTIC). The calves were weaned early and sold to prolong hope for the late in-calf breeding cows, who were due to calve early February 2020. We would never usually sell pregnant breeding cows except in desperate times like this. The cows were losing condition rapidly in the drought, with very little water or grass left and no one knew when the drought would finally break. There was no other option left but to sell them. We got a slot in an abattoir in the NSW town of Young, for early Jan 2020, secured some weeks earlier. Finding abattoirs to buy cattle is often extremely hard in this situation, as they cannot keep up with the long queue of farmers desperately trying to sell cattle before there is no other option but to euthanise the cattle. Many abattoirs closer to Greylands were closed. We were selling trailer loads of cattle in a timeline plan, another batch whenever rain hadn't arrived by a certain date. Severe drought is gruelling on so many levels.

Towards the end of 2019/early 2020, there was a big rain band forecast for the following week, but we couldn't back out of the sale. The predicted rain may or may not have come and dire circumstances awaited the cattle if little or no rain were to follow. Sadly, we had to proceed with selling another batch of cows to the abattoir.

A dam had just been dug out with an excavator, as there was nothing but mud left. We often take this opportunity to clean out dams during a drought when they are almost empty, so that the water quality and storage is better, when rain arrives and it once again fills up. Five days after the cows had left on the truck, a heifer calf (Charolais crossed with Murray Grey) was to our great surprise found hidden deep in an excavator caterpillar track next to a dam. The calf's mother had unexpectedly calved prematurely, prior to being sold. None of the cows were expected to calve at this time, so you can imagine the surprise finding a calf, let alone finding a living calf, having survived 5 days on its own in severe drought conditions.

The heifer calf was bottle fed to health by the Wilkinsons. She was given the name 'Lucky', due to her survival in severe drought conditions, on her own for 5 days without a mother. We are very thankful to the Wilkinsons for saving her and nurturing her to become a healthy calf.

Lucky had presumably managed to get a drink with some colostrum from her mother after being born, before her mother was loaded on the truck and that helped her to survive the five days before being found and bottle fed to become a healthy heifer calf.

Another calf ('Steph') had also previously been orphaned and bottle fed, and used to hang around the house as a grown heifer. She adopted Lucky and they were a duo until Steph had her own calf, but they remained friends. They ended up going to different paddocks.

Both Steph and Lucky are now ‘stand out in the paddocks’ breeding cows. They are now the only remaining non-Angus cattle on Greylands. Lucky now has black calves, with Angus bulls.

Both Lucky and Steph will live out all their days on Greylands. They are regularly spotted, happily grazing on the hills of Greylands, distinct from our now otherwise fully black Angus herd.

Above: Lucky's friend 'Steph' in the background near the creek, together with her calf (nicknamed 'Persil') in the foreground. (August 2025)

Dung beetles on Greylands

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 02:42:53 GMT

A natural solution to improve soil, pasture and water quality and 'bye bye bushfly'.

Dung beetles have been studied long and hard scientifically and their praises have been sung by many a farmer. We are also a big fan of the job dung beetles do at Greylands.

Dung beetles play a very important role in Australia’s grazing ecosystems. By burying dung in the soil, beetles improve the flow of water, nutrients and carbon into the root zones of pastures.

Below is a TEDx talk by John Feehan in Canberra about dung beetles.

https://www.mla.com.au/research-and-development/Environment-sustainability/dung-beetles/

Fixing the issue of boggy cattle yards - bobcat work and gravel

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 10:33:20 GMT

Greylands cattle yards - a solution for boggy yards in wet conditions.

Greylands cattle yards were built over 100 years ago in their current location. Since then the yards have been updated as required, including updated cattle crush and digital scales. The original yards were hardwood post and rail. Some years ago we replaced the race leading up to the cattle crush with metal panels. In July and Aug 2025, the remainder of the wooden post and rail yards were changed over to galvanised steel panels with a new layout that allows easier separation of cattle into different categories. The location of the yards is in a flat area where water runs off from the elevated area above the yards during heavy rain. This water then tends to run down through the yards creating a lot of mud during wetter seasons. During these wetter seasons over the years, this yard mud has at times created issues with cattle work when the cattle yards get too muddy, with pugging from cattle hooves. In November 2024, the yards had some bobcat work to remove the top layer of soil and a new base added. This should significantly help future cattle yard durability especially in wet seasons. The cattle loading race has also recently had concrete laid and the driveway and creek causeway has had work in recent times. All this allows for more reliable access to Greylands for cattle trucks for cattle sales or purchases.

Bore drilling at Greylands

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

An additional source of stock water for future droughts at Greylands.

Seasons change at Greylands, just like everywhere else in Australia. Our location in the Hunter Vallley is prone especially to extremes of drought, heat and during wetter periods, flooding. Temperatures in Summer regularly reach 42 deg C and we have even had as high as 48degC one year. During dry or drought periods, bushfires are an ever-present risk. While there can be frosts in winter, there is never snow. Given Greylands has hilly country, we don't have the issue of floodplain flooding but access can be cut off to various parts of the property until Goorangoola Creek flooding subsides. There have been some extreme droughts in the past at Greylands. There was a particularly lengthy drought that eventually ended early 2020. Over the 2019/2020 Summer there were unprecedented fire conditions throughout the majority of Australia's East Coast . Vast areas of bushland and farmland burned in out of control fires, throughout Victoria, NSW, ACT and Queensland. More recently, during 2023, there was a more sudden slide into very dry conditions resulting in a heavy impact on cattle in the region, stress on water storage and an unexpected boundary bushfire at Greylands in winter, then another one in the months following. Goorangoola Creek runs through the heart of Greylands and provides an excellent source of stock water the majority of the time. Additionally, in another part of Greylands there is fairly secure water for stock in a paddock with a smaller but permanent creek - Cross Creek. However, during the more severe droughts, these creeks stop running and water holes dry up one by one. During drought, temperatures are generally hotter too, so water dries up very quickly if there is no rain, especially when summer temperatures are in the 30s or 40s day after day. During drought, bushfire risk increases too and there is generally less water available to fight fires when the risk of bushfires is the highest.

Other paddocks without creeks are very reliant on water storage in dams for our cattle. Over the years, Greylands owner Ian Bailey, assisted by his wife Margaret and the Greylands farm manager, have made the strategic decision to add new dams in paddocks where historically there has been pressure on stock water reserves during significant droughts. Successive Bailey generations before us also added dams for cattle drinking water in each paddock without a permanent creek. There have been times when dams have dried out completely or reached very low levels. Water quality then suffers when the dam water levels get too low. Cattle often need to be sold off during times of drought if there is insufficient grass and water for the number of cattle on the property. During droughts, this is a common scenario for many other cattle farmers too, so there are large numbers of cattle being offered to the market, driving prices down at the very time running costs often increase. Unfortunately with forced sales of good quality breeding cattle during droughts, there is then the cost of buying back other quality breeders when seasons change for the better. Buying back good quality breeders once the rain comes is generally a very expensive exercise, because there is often a shortage of quality breeders after the drought breaks: all cattle breeders are wanting to replace their breeding stock at the same time, once the rain comes and the grass is growing again.

When there have been years of hard work developing genetics for quality cattle, it is a particularly hard decision to let go of high quality breeding cattle during times of drought, due to a shortage of feed and/or water - cattle that could otherwise be retained if only there had been more water or feed available. Hay can of course be bought, but during droughts, there is often a shortage of hay available to purchase (due to the fact that when Greylands is in drought, often a lot of the Australian East coast is often also drought-affected). Over the years El Nino (drier than usual or drought conditions) and La Nina (wetter than usual or flooding conditions) has tended to correlate pretty well with conditions at Greylands. ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) tends to predict these conditions fairly reliably for Australia's East coast. There are other climate indicators/drivers (e.g SAM - Southern Annular Mode, IOD - Indian Ocean Dipole) we also keep an eye on, which help to at least give some idea of long range weather forecasts, for planning. Apart from droughts, we have also had major floods in the past. The Hunter Valley had a particularly severe flood in 1955, at which time the Hunter River broke its banks and flooded Singleton. Maitland also had severe flooding further downstream. Goorangooola Creek that runs through Greylands becomes a raging torrent of water during floods.

Dams fill up during wetter seasons and serve as water reservoirs for drier seasons, but what happens when dams dry out? That creates a massive problem for us at Greylands - cattle then need access to other dams, which puts further pressure on those dams' water storage. If dams dry out completely or become too low for the water to be usable, dams are often dredged with an excavator at those times. Mud that accumulates on the bottom of dams reduces water storage capacity within the dam and increases the risk of cattle getting stuck in the thick mud when they come to the dam to drink, at a time when they are already weaker due to drought conditions. Once the dam has been cleaned out, water quality improves when it fills back up during wetter times, as there is less mud mixed in with the water.

Many farms around Australia have drilled for water, creating bores. Water quality in those bores can vary enormously. Water in some bores can be too salty for stock to drink. In April 2024 the decision was made to apply for consent and drill for water. Greylands now has a bore ready for stock drinking water for the next drought. While more infrastructure will be required to get water to where it is needed for drinking water for Greylands cattle, we are certainly glad to have a bore ready. While the bore water flow rate is not what we had hoped for, the water quality from the bore is very good, so we are thankful to have a backup source of cattle drinking water.

At the time of writing, conditions are good at Greylands. However we are well aware that the next drought will come at some stage, often without a lot of warning. When that time comes, we will be very glad to have the bore for backup drinking water for Greylands cattle.

My Country, by Dorothea Mackellar

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

This poem is very dear to the Bailey family at Greylands, as it is to many other Australians. Dorothea Mackellar's words so poignantly reflect the realities of the triumphs and trials of the climate extremes of Australia and its impact on farming. We have certainly observed the droughts and flooding rains at Greylands over the years, which she so poetically describes.

My Country

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold –
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

-- Dorothea Mackellar

Dorothy Mackellar spent time in her younger years at a family property at East Gresford, only an hour's drive from Greylands.
She attributed much of the inspiration for 'My Country' to her time spent on that property.

https://www.torryburnstud.com.au/torryburn-history

"Torryburn has enjoyed a variety of owners including the Mackellar family, who took possession 1898. The poet, Dorothea MacKellar , was just a teenager when the family moved in. The family purchased the property as one of the worst droughts in the history of white settlement hit the area. One evening in 1904, after some good rains, Dorothea sat on the homestead’s front verandah writing a letter to a friend in England. Each time she looked up, a green veil thickened across the paddock in front of her. This moment inspired part of her classic My Country ( many readers will know this poem as “I Love a Sunburnt Country"). In her later years, she attributed much of the inspiration for her iconic poem to her years living at Torryburn."