Host: Country Downs Station

Owners: Kurt & Nikki Elezovich

Region: Kimberley WA

Average rainfall: ~940mm pa

Nearest town for shopping, doctors etc: Broome

Nearest roadhouse: Roebuck Roadhouse

Number of staff: 0

How often and how the mail is delivered: Mail is picked up from Broome PO during town runs.

How often and how the stores shopping is done: Approx once a fortnight. Either by Woolies shopping online OR cruising the aisles!

How far off the bitumen you are: ~70km

My name is Nikki Elezovich and together with my husband, Kurt, we are the owner operators of our Kimberley cattle property, Country Downs Station. Country Downs is situated ~ 100km north of Broome on the (predominantly dirt) Cape Leveque Rd on the Dampier Peninsula in North-Western Australia. Our property is a family run station in which Kurt and I, with our two young boys (a 4yr old and a 1yr old), run the entire operation on our own. We produce mainly Brahman cross cattle for the live export markets, but do produce some cattle for the domestic market when and where possible. We also run some Boer goats, however, they are more pets than anything else!

My husband, Kurt, grew up on a station just south of Broome where he developed his innate love and passion for the land and the animals that exist in harmony with it. Whilst both of us have spent many years working and soaking up various experiences in other industries such as the Aquaculture, Pearling and the Mining Industries, Kurt finally managed to start living his dream in early 2003, when he purchased Country Downs Station.

I was born and raised in Broome, where I developed an appreciation and a love for the outback and all things intriguing and wonderful that goes with growing up in the country. As a child, my family spent many a weekend in the boat fishing or in the car (or even boat!) camping, but always heading out for fun and adventure. As I became a young adult and moved away from the country, into the city for a tertiary education in Marine Biology, I finally realised how much the country, and everything it has to offer, meant to me. So I focused on one day returning to the spacious, natural, quiet places that pulled at my heart and that day eventually happened when I followed love out to Country Downs in 2007!

Since then we have been steadily developing the property toward our end goal, which is to have the ability to do the work we love and to live the life we love, sustainably. The last 5 years have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion for us with our wedding, the birth of our two young boys, developing the property, dealing with the devastating effects to our family unit from the live export suspension in 2011 and dealing with the uncertainty of our future in the wake of the flow-on effects from that suspension. Despite some hard times, we are eagerly and optimistically looking forward to our intrepid and passionate journey towards developing an economically and environmentally sustainable agricultural business that we will be able to leave to our kids and generations to follow.