My great grandfather, Ben Barrett, disembarked from the "Hannah More" at the Rockhampton wharf in June 1865. He had sailed direct from England with his parents and five siblings. 20 years later, he and his wife Mary selected land in the Mt. Hedlow district where they dairied and raised pigs. One of their ten children, my grandfather Harry, selected three blocks of Barmoya scrub country when the Government surveyed the scrub areas in 1908. These blocks were covered by a dense vine scrub with some areas of belah.
After clearing, (the scrub was cut by axe and then burnt) lucerne was planted and sold as chaff in Rockhampton. Harry developed and expanded his holding and by the 1930's a dairy and free range piggery were operating and crops of maize, sweet potatoes and pumpkins were grown. During World War 2 a lot of this produce was used to feed American soldiers stationed in nearby areas.
In 1931 country along Hedlow Creek was purchased from a member of the Henderson family and this was where my mother and father made their family home. After Harry and his wife, Nell, retired in the late 1940's the holding was named "Henderson Park".
Since that time grazing has been the principle activity. Initially, a Hereford based herd was run but by 1960 this breed had been replaced by Brahmans.
In recent years we have maintained a fairly high level of Brahman influence in our herd but have experimented with a range of other breeds in a cross breeding program. Some of these have been discarded due to unsuitability to the area and at present our herd is Brahman or Brahman-Angus cross. Our enterprise involves both the breeding and fattening of cattle, and our aim is to produce beef for the export markets - mainly Europe and Japan.
We have been in the tourism industry since 1997 - building cabins on the banks of Hedlow Creek. Our guests have a choice of relaxing on the creek or getting involved in what we are doing in the every day running of "Henderson Park".
Water table salting, which became evident in the 1940's, presents the greatest land management problem on "Henderson Park". We estimate that about 20% of the property is salt affected to some degree. Fortunately, most is only marginally affected but small areas have been degraded to bare soil.
We believe the best management of this salt affected land is to provide a good grass cover with salt tolerant species and conservative stocking rates, which we achieve through fencing and limiting cattle access.
As all the water under "Henderson Park" is saline we rely heavily on Hedlow Creek to provide water for our cattle. It is reticulated through 14km of poly pipe to all parts of the property.
With this in mind, we have embarked on a program of fencing and tree planting along it's banks which will, hopefully, help to ensure its longevity. Our basic philosophy is that conservative stocking rates and rotational grazing will look after your land which will, in turn, help to produce a high quality product.
