The series about this Flinders Ranges sheep station wouldn’t be complete without a look at the Depot Springs homestead.

It nestles in some low hills on the southern side of the road between Copley and the aboriginal community at Nepabunna.

It’s a beautiful setting and having seen how everything is so well maintained and cared for throughout the property, it is the same here at the homestead.

One of the assets at the homestead is Patsy Springs….a source of abundant sweet water that is supplied by a windmill.

Geoff Mengersen and his son -in-law Luke Ridsdale are replacing blades on one of the windmills at the homestead, but with another 21 spread all over the 500 square kilometre station, maintenance is a constant job.

Patsy Springs was once a watering point for big herds of sheep that were walked in from eastern properties to the railway trucking yards at Copley.

The practise was phased out in the 1960s when road transport began taking over from rail and sheep from each station could be dealt with separately.

Now the spring feeds the homestead and the old stone tank which has become a haven from the heat as a swimming pool where youngest daughter Chloe and a friend enjoy a leisurely dip.

Chloe (that’s Chloe in the front) goes to school at the Leigh Creek Area school as did her mom and dad and sisters Brooke and Kaeli. Brooke (on the left) now works at the Leigh Creek Hospital and Kaeli (centre), a veterinarian assistant, is back at Depot Springs helping out with shearing and mustering again this year.

At shearing time the homestead is a hive of activity. Di provides breakfast, lunch and dinner for all those involved in the muster.

This continues during and after the shearing as the sheep are returned to outlying paddocks. The shearers provide their own food and a cook.

Friday night usually sees and bit of get together and a barbecue.

The Depot Springs woolshed has a certain architectural beauty….perhaps not everybody’s taste, but if you appreciate tectures and practical design then this woolshed has them both.

Di Mengersen’s grandfather, Lance Nicholls helped build the shed back in the 1920s but its days might be numbered as there are plans to built another shearing shed closer to the Depot Springs homestead.

The existing shed is a fair old hike away…about 25 kilometres, and that makes for a lot of unnecessary travelling.

It’s seen over 90 summers and probably 600,00 sheep have passed through its yards. It’s made of recycled corrugated iron and red gum uprights and beams. The wood has been weathered by time and polished by the rubbing of all those sheep.

A contractor from Murray Bridge organises the shearers for the annual Depot Spring event.

There’s a team of eleven , made up of five shearers, three shed hands, a wool classer, wool presser and a cook.

They come from as far afield at Esperence in Western Australia and Horsham in Victoria.

It takes about 12 days to shear all the Depot Springs sheep. That’s over 190 bales of wool.

The contractor and also the wool classer is Bernie Baker from Adelaide, that’s him on the left.

Bernie’s been coming to Depot Springs for 28 years.

In February the shearing shed is no place for the faint hearted. Shearing is demanding work at the best of times and at this time of the year the temperature can be around 45 degrees Celsius on the shearing board.

With five shearers working steadily throughout the day, the shed is rarely still or quiet except for smoko and lunch breaks.

The shed hands, the wool classer and the wool presser – the person who operates the baling press, have little time to spare as each of the fleeces arrives on the sorting bench. The shearing board needs constant sweeping too.

The fruits of all the days of sweat and toil….193 bales of top quality merino wool

There are literally hundreds of old mines dotted around the Flinders Ranges yet most were dismal failures.

One of the more profitable ones is on Depot Springs Station. Paull’s Consolidated Copper MIne operated up till the 1920s.

It was a surprisingly large mine site in comparison with other ruins in the area.

There’s still lots of old relics around and pits which show the extent of the mining.

Boilers, rock breakers and crushers all stand on the side of the hill which would have been a hive of activity at the beginning of the last century.

A nearby grave site marks what seems to be the last resting place of one miner.

Details carved in a rock give little insight into the story behind the grave.

With 7000 sheep to round up and get to the holding paddock at the shearing shed, each day’s work is carefully planned.

It’s a sequence that depends on the weather and experience. This day there was a thunderstorm and heavy clouds in the area but not much chance of rain.

Despite the terrain and the heat the well being of the sheep is a priority. Those too young or too old to make the journey end up riding in the back of a ute.

Jack’s Camp is on the picturesque eastern side of the property and the five hundred or so sheep in the holding yards will be moved a few kilometres to another paddock closer to the shearing shed. And from there to another, until they reach their destination about 35 kilometres away.

I knew the sheep would be heading down this creek with the early morning light flooding through the river gums. I thought it might make a good photograph. I wasn’t disappointed. The scene could have been right out of a Tom Roberts painting.

Because of the cloud, the temperature was a little down, but even so it was still around 40 degrees and the sheep tended to move at their own pace with a little encouragement from the stockmen for the stragglers lagging behind.

This day it is a family affair. Cousins Lindsay Mengersen from Wooltana Station, Troy Fels from Motpena and son-in-law Luke Ridsdale from Leigh Creek are on the drive with Geoff. The four are mostly spread out over a wide area communicating by UHF radios.

There’s 11 main paddocks on Depot Springs and eight sets of drafting yards, several of which are using during the muster.

Nevertheless, anybody unfamiliar with this rocky country would think that bringing thousands of sheep to shearing would be an impossibility, especially with just five men and their motorbikes.

Yet it has been done this way every year for decades either with bikes or horses.

The dead trees along this creek tell a story of heartbreak and hardship.

While quick and heavy falls of rain are nothing new around this part of the world, particularly in summer and often caused by thunderstorms, nothing prepared Geoff and Di Mengersen for devastating floods in April 2010.

Depot Springs received about 100 millimetres or 4 inches of rain in 90 minutes.

The torrential downpour changed the whole landscape. It washed away hills, took out about 15 kilometres of fences, washed away roads, and destroyed infrastructure.

700 sheep were lost.

Hundreds of large river red gums were ripped from the ground and washed away. Those that remained were literally battered to death…..ringbarked by the tons of broken trees and other debris hurled down by the terrific force of the water.

Today they make a forlorn sight…a stark reminder of a storm that almost forced the Mengersens to give up the property.

First light at the Jack Camp yards on the Eastern side of Depot Springs station

A thunderstorm approaching from the left…the sun rising on the right.

A great recipe for an electric sky.

Mustering is a slow process and takes lots of persistence and patience. 500 square kilometres is a lot of ground to cover.

While the motorbike has streamlined the process, putting together a mob for droving means carefully checking for every animal.

Once gathered together, the sheep move almost at their own pace with the stockmen just guiding them in the direction of the holding paddock.

There they will recuperate from the journey for a few days before shearing starts.

These days the stockmen use walkie-talkies to coordinate their efforts but in the heat of summer it is still hard work.

Sheepdogs were once used for the job but no more. Baits laid down for dingoes and wild dogs has ended that.

Dingoes and wild dogs are a real menace in these parts.

The Mengersens have lost many hundreds of lambs and sheep to dingoes and because the surrounding properties have either been resumed for National Parks, aboriginal land or other uses, they are fighting the problem almost alone.

Depot Springs is about 35 kilometres wide from east to west, which is the way the hills and mountains runs.

This makes is a bit easier to move the animals from the eastern paddocks to the shearing shed in the west.

The pictures though give a good look at the country that makes up the station.

Depot Springs is a 500 square kilometre property about 30 kilometres east of Copley in the Flinders Ranges.

Its southern boundary is along the Copley to Balcanoona Road. Many visitors to places like Arkaroola pass by unaware.

Its rocky and hilly country with a low stock carrying capacity. Nevertheless It runs about 7000 sheep which do quite well compared to some other areas, even in drought.

Maintaining the property is hard and constant work but around shearing time the tempo picks up.

Geoff and the other stockmen. who are mostly relatives and friends are on the road well before first light.

Because of the summer heat it is best to muster the sheep early….bringing them to paddocks and yards where they can be watered and readied for the trip to the shearing shed.

One of the advantages of mustering in the summer is that the sheep don’t stray too far water for too long.

Nevertheless every corner of the property is checked by the motorbike riders who need exceptional skill in the rocky terrain.

The average rainfall in the northern Flinders Ranges is 200 millimetres a year, last summer when these pictures were taken was exceptionally good.

There’s been little rain over the summer months this year and temperatures have been a lot higher during the day, so the mustering and shearing this year will be a little tougher.

Di and Geoff Mengersen from Depot Spring Station in the northern Flinders Ranges.

The Mengersens are about to start their annual muster and shearing which takes most of February.

Last year I spent about three weeks on and off, following the whole operation.

I was shooting a story for the R. M. Williams “Best of Outback Stations” publication which came out last July.

When you shoot for the R M Williams you agree to not use the images for 6 months and that time is now up.

Depot Spring is a family affair, still going while surrounding properties have succumbed to drought, floods and hard times.

The country is surprisingly beautiful too.

I’ll be running their story over the next few posts. I hope you will enjoy it.