Argyle Downs is a pastoral lease and cattle station located about 120 kilometres (75 mi) south east of Kununurra in the Kimberley region near the border of Western Australia and Northern Territory. It is operated by the Consolidated Pastoral Company.
The station occupies an area of 1,000 square kilometres (386 sq mi) and is a mix of black soil plains and red basalt country with the Ord River and Lake Argyle situated on the western boundary.[1] Currently the property annually turns off 7,500 head of cattle for live export to the south East Asia market. Stock horses are also bred and raised on the property for use on other stations.
The area was settled by Patrick and his brother Michael Durack in 1882 who arrived in the area after trekking across the north of the continent from their property on Coopers Creek in Queensland where they left from in 1879 along with 7250 breeding cattle and 200 horses. The 3000 mile journey of cattle to stock Argyle Downs and Ivanhoe station is the longest of its type ever recorded.[2]
The Duracks exported the cattle from the station through the port of Wyndham to markets as fas as South Africa and North America.
The homestead was constructed in 1895 by the Durack family and was renowned as one of the main social gathering places in the east Kimberley. Built from limestone blocks and mortar made from crushed termite mounds the homestead had to be dismantled to make way for Lake Argyle in the 1970s. The homestead was reopened in 1979 and now acts as a museum in its present location along the shore of the lake.[3]
A sizable proportion of the lease was resumed by the Government in the 1950s for the Ord River Irrigation Scheme.