Anna Plains Station (2013-)
Host: Anna Plains Station
Managers/Owners: David, Helen and John Stoate
Region: Kimberley, Western Australia
Rainfall: 400mm pa
Nearest town for shopping, doctors etc., Broome 270km, 17km on dirt off the highway to Homestead, nearest roadhouse is Sandfire.
Number of Cattle: 18,000 head
Number of staff: 6 full time staff and 5 seasonal workers
Size of station: 381,537 ha or 943,000 acres
How often and how the mail is delivered: Twice a week via road
How often and how the stores shopping is done: Usually once a week to Broome
How far off the bitumen you are: 17 kms
The Anna Plains family
My name is Helen Campion and together with my husband, David Stoate, I manage Anna Plains Station. ‘Anna’ is proudly run and owned by the Stoate family with 3 generations still calling it home today and who’s involvement dates back to 1983.
Anna Plains Station is located on the remote Kimberley coast of northern Western Australia, approximately 250km south of Broome. It is just under one million acres of open rangeland stretching from the shores of the Eighty Mile Beach to the Great Sandy Desert.
My husband David Stoate and I took over management in 2006. Prior to this I was a city girl working at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney as an operating room nurse while David worked at Rabobank. The time had come for David’s father, John Stoate, to hand over the reins to the next generation … and so we came, along with our two wonderful children, Timothy and Joanna, having no prior experience working on a station to discover a way of living, loving and working.
We run the station in an environmentally sustainable manner to produce cattle for both domestic and international markets. Such practices include matching the cattle in a paddock to the feed available, allowing the cattle to graze and the land to recover as nature intended. This holistic approach which I was able to translate to station work from my years of nursing aims to benefit not only the land and the cattle in their quality of life whilst being reared here at Anna.
Our ‘crew’ consists of fulltime staff, seasonal workers and backpackers. The jobs, like the people vary depending on what the cattle and land command of us, but ever-present roles include a cook, boreman, mechanic, plant operator and stockmen. Every one of my staff and the roles they fill are vital to the smooth operation of the station.
88 days
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Camilla Drema, Domestic Looking at the city landscape before me; a beautiful skyline with some teetering skyscrapers, I realised this place had become my home away from home in just 8 short months. And you didn’t just leave home before you were ready… Enter Anna Plains Cattle Station. When […]
Share this:
Anna Plains & Cyclone Kelvin: 18th of February 2018
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion, Manager Lives and homes were under threat as Cyclone Kelvin was due to cross over the coast South of Broome somewhere!! As the warnings were being listened to on ABC radio and social media pages it was clear that our station which boundaries with Mandora Station to […]
Share this:
A station manager’s perspective
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion, Owner, Anna Plains Station People ask me what it’s like to live on and manage a remote Kimberley cattle station… After having spent the last 12 years at Anna Plains Station, I can honestly say that this job is probably not what you think it is. In […]
Share this:
Missing Anna
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Greta Stonier, 2017 Crew Member. After finishing school, I had no idea what I was going to do with myself… I applied for a few local Sydney Universities, an apprenticeship with the AFL head office, and to a recruitments company for cattle stations on the northern end of Australia. […]
Share this:
Gap Year (poem)
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Jackson Scott, 2017 crew member. Don’t be original, it’s all they ever say, but being a ringer, its not ideal pay. Stockmen from the top end, young and hard and mean, but half of them from boarding school, nothing but a teen. Too cool for uni and filled with […]
Share this:
My “Plain Life” – a little less cheesy!
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Karlee Barber, Station Cook. My name is Karlee Barber, I am from a small town called Bemboka. On the far south coast of NSW, nestled in the Bega Valley (yes that’s right, the home of Bega Cheese). Growing up I always had an interest in farming and the country […]
Share this:
The pretend Jillaroo
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Natasha Mahar This Broome girl needed some time out and a purpose again as there was way too much binge Netflixing happening while I wondered what to do next in my life. My dear friend Helen, aka Mrs Boss made the call… “Tarshy, get your arse down here to […]
Share this:
61, turning 3
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion – Station Owner/Manager, Anna Plains Station. Mardie, 61 year old gentleman celebrating his 3rd birthday on the Plains. The humming of the Royal Flying Doctor Services (RFDS) jet engine approaching was a comforting sound after a long night of uncertainty. Touchdown on our all weather gravel […]
Share this:
Bush vs. City
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion – Station Owner/Manager, Anna Plains Station. It’s been twelve years since we left our house in Sydney to live on a cattle station in the Kimberley. The time has flown by. The little children we brought out from the city have grown up, so much so that […]
Share this:
Mooing to medicine
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Tim Stoate – Owner, Anna Plains Station. When your parents decide to live 270km from the nearest town, growing up in regional Western Australia is as interesting as it is different from the typical child. I was very fortunate in my upbringing. Having just under one-million acres to play […]
Share this:
Up ‘n’ out
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion – Station Owner/Manager, Anna Plains Station. The sound of the alarm to get the camp moving at 5.10am sometimes comes around too quickly for a few members of the crew. Others have been smart and gone to bed early the night before. However, all are present for […]
Share this:
The industry, a decade on.
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by David Stoate – Owner, Anna Plains Station. The ten years since we moved from the city life to outback life have been tumultuous from a personal point of view but also from an industry point of view, with more ups and downs than the Grand Old Duke of York. […]
Share this:
From grapes to beef
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Jackson Scott – Station Hand, Anna Plains Station. G’day my name is Jackson Scott, and this year I’ve been working on Anna Plains Station. I’m an 18 year old from the other side of Australia – Dubbo. I was born and raised in Dubbo growing up on a vineyard […]
Share this:
Just “Plain” cooking
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by the Cook, Anna Plains Station. `“Have you always been a cook?” That is the question that inevitably leads me to tell the story of how my husband, Scotty, and I came to be at Anna Plains Station. Quite simply the answer is no. So how did we end up […]
Share this:
A decade later and still loving the plains
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion – Owner, Anna Plains Station. It has been nearly 11 years since we left our city life to take up residence on a cattle station south of Broome to assist my husband’s father in running the business. We arrived on the 26th of January 2006, a significant […]
Share this:
The China opportunity
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by David Stoate – Owner/Manager, Anna Plains Station. Plenty has been heard in recent years about the opportunity that China represents for Australian business. The northern beef industry is at the centre of this opportunity. The Department of Agriculture and Food in Western Australia has estimated that an increase in per capita […]
Share this:
The darkest hour
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Helen Campion – Owner/Manager, Anna Plains Station. The darkest hour is before the dawn or so the saying goes. I am not sure whether the saying is actually true, but it is what nearly everyone in the northern cattle industry was hoping a few years ago. It seemed like that just […]
Share this:
Fate and a pair of arm length gloves
Host: Anna Plains Station I landed up on the Plains as a matter of chance, of luck, but sometimes the events that led up to my arrival feel like fate. I’m a vet student from Edinburgh, Scotland and in June 2015 I traveled to Western Australia with the dream of working on a cattle station. […]
Share this:
“Stationitis”
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by Emma – Station Hand, Anna Plains Station. After 18 months as a jillaroo on Anna Plains Station, I jumped ship and boarded a flight destined for halfway across the world. Taking my seat on the plane I descended into the depths of hell (travelling 23 hours straight) before re-emerging […]
Share this:
A visitor to the Plains
Host: Anna Plains Station Written by A Guest – Station Hand and Friend, Anna Plains Station. The first time I drove onto Anna Plains I had no idea how much it was going to change my lifestyle and my way of thinking. Anna Plains station is nearly a million acres of outback stretching from the […]
