Round-the-world sailor's historic Murray River sheep farm up for grabs

During World War II, Barooga station was chosen as a hospital site for Australian and American army and air force personnel. The since-demolished 43-building hospital housed 34 doctors and nurses throughout the war.

In 1982, the 495-hectare property was acquired for $500,000 by engineer and sailor John Jarrett, who 14 years prior had circumnavigated the globe on the 52-foot yacht Winston Churchill, a journey that took almost 11 months.

Mr Jarrett, who died in 2016, also designed and built one of the country’s finest sailing yachts, the Banjo Paterson, which competed in many races, including the Sydney-to-Hobart, and is now a charter boat for hire in the Whitsundays.

Also a pastoralist, Mr Jarrett and his wife Pat restored the original seven-bedroom Barooga homestead. The farm is also home to one of the region’s largest woolsheds.

Barooga Station is now being offered to the market by the Jarrett family with price expectations of around $10 million.

CBRE’s Shane McIntyre and Matt Childs are managing the sale via an expression of interest campaign.

“Barooga Station is an untouched cropping and grazing property that is suitable for development into a highly productive horticultural or irrigated cropping enterprise,” Mr McIntyre said.

The centrepiece of the property is the original seven-bedroom, five-bathroom homestead featuring 4.5-metre ceilings, wide verandahs, ornate open fireplaces and a formal dining room and ballroom.

With its prime position on the banks of the Bullanginya Lagoon, immediate access to irrigation water via its six kilometres of river frontage, and the rich heritage of its Classical Revival-style homestead, Mr Childs said he expected Barooga Station to have wide appeal.

Other historic farms hitting the market at a time of generational change include the 18,500-hectare Wyseby beef cattle portfolio in Central Queensland’s Arcadia Valley and Carnarvon Ranges, which has been owned by five generations of the Pedersen family for more than 90 years.

Located 62 kilometres south of Rolleston, Wyseby was originally selected by Gotfred Pedersen in 1933. Extensively developed, the portfolio is suited to growing oats to complement a beef operation.

The portfolio comprises two properties, which are being offered separately.

The much larger of the two, 15,914-hectare Wyseby, on the Carnarvon Highway, includes a homestead complex, with three homes for owners and managers, additional quarters and multiple sheds. A Santa Gertrudis breeding herd is also available to purchase.

About 125 km away, Ranchlands, near Injune, is a 2586-hectare elevated property used for backgrounding and fattening cattle.

The Wyseby portfolio is being sold by Ben Forrest and Grant Veivers of Resolute Property Group,

While price expectations remain confidential, local valuers said similar country has sold in the $2500 to $3000 per acre (0.4 hectare) range.

Just over an hour’s drive north from Hobart, 3386 -hectare Stonehenge – originally settled by publican, pastoralist and Tasmanian Racing Club co-founder Samuel Page in 1855 – has been listed for sale.

Home to a grand seven-bedroom slate-roofed homestead built in 1879 out of sandstone mined from the property, Stonehenge is being sold for $25 million by the McShane family after 75 years of ownership.

Operated as a sheep farm with a carrying capacity of up to 16,000 animals, Stonehenge is being marketed by Andrew Fisher of Nutrien Harcourts.

Mr Fisher said he expected interstate interest in the property given its historic significance, and the fact that the property is well maintained.

Joining these listings, Stoneacres, a 32-hectare lifestyle estate in Drysedale on the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong, Vic, has been listed for sale with price expectations around $9 million.