Australian Country – June-July 2019

72 australiancountry.net.au

on the peninsula spell their surname with a “k”,

but two members of the family amended it to “h”,

so families with surnames spelled diff erently are

often related. The fi rst licence to run sheep on the

peninsula was granted to James Coutts in the 1840s.

This holding became known as Coutts Run and in 1857

it was taken over by Joseph Gilbert of Pewsey Vale in

the Barossa Valley. The head station was Tuckokcowie

and outstations included Orrie Cowie, which was later

divided during an amicable family redistribution to

create North Cowie. All stations are currently owned

by branches of the Murdoch family and both Orrie

Cowie and North Cowie run Merino studs.

Sheep had a bit of a shaky start in the region,

as early on they were found to be susceptible to

what locals called ‘‘coast disease’’. In the 1920s, this

was discovered to be a defi ciency of cobalt and

copper in the pastures, which can be remedied by

supplements. Copper was a simple matter of adding

superphosphate, but it wasn’t until the late 1940s that

the CSIRO devised cobalt bullets, which were injected

into the sheep’s stomach, with a metal grub screw to

aid the cobalt’s release.

Tuckokcowie has belonged to the Murdochs since

the early 1970s when Richard’s parents bought it

with the plan that he would eventually take over.

That happened shortly after Richard and Lee-Anne

married in 1983. “I was from Snowtown in the mid

north and I went to university in Adelaide to become

a home economics teacher,” Lee-Anne says. “We used

to come down here to have water-skiing holidays at

Point Turton and that’s how my brother met his wife.

I was seated beside Richard at their wedding and the

rest is history.”

The move to Tuckokcowie meant taking up

residence in the rambling homestead, which began life

as a two-roomed shepherd’s cottage. “The date on the

original fi replace is 1846,” Lee-Anne says. “Like many

farmhouses, it was added to through the years, so it

needed work by the time we came along. Richard’s

parents gave us $15,000 as a wedding present, so we

used it to make the kitchen half decent and do

Clockwise from
above: Pencil pines
frame views of the
paddocks where
Merino sheep and
Murray Grey cattle
graze and crops
are planted; sheep
returning to the
paddocks past the
homestead; shearing
in full swing.

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