about us
Ken Darnell and Jo Clews, originally from the Margaret River Region of the South West then Geraldton in the Midwest of western Australia, purchased and took over the Pastoral Lease of Melangata Station in February 2016. (pronounced Melang-ata)
Previously from 1916 the station has run Merino sheep for wool with varying degrees of success Melangata has seen a few owners since the Williamson family sold out in 1927. It survived a number of years during the 1930s depression when it was repossessed by the bank and lay vacant until 1946 when the Seaman Family took over the lease and they have had the longest European connection to the station from then till 1998.
During the early 2000s the property was used as a depot for the collection of feral goats that were breeding up in large numbers throughout the region, a small amount of restoration was done to the homestead but mostly it was in very poor condition and most of the work has been carried out in the last seven years.
Our vision is to renovate, reinvigorate, rehabilitate, regenerate and restore not only the deteriorating unique homestead but also the degraded landscape from years of neglect. In order to do this, as we don’t have a bottomless pot of money, we initially created a campground with basic facilities for self sufficient travellers to enjoy the serenity of the bush.
Over the course of the last seven years we have also renovated and up graded the facilities at the Shearers quarters and the Homestead to offer an alternative form of accommodation to those that don’t camp.
Tens of kilometres of new fencing has been erected to stop the threat of wild dogs killing our flock of sheep and keep the sheep contained where we want them. In the near future we will be introducing more sheep to our pastoral enterprise and continue our regenerative agriculture journey.
We are excited for what the future holds and look forward to seeing the changes that will assist us in making our little piece of the Southern rangelands productive, sustainable and vibrant once again.