Qualla: Wollogorang Station

Wollogorang Station: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Wollogorang straddles a line on the map that means almost nothing on the ground. The Northern Territory ends and Queensland begins somewhere out in its 7,057 square kilometres of savanna, but the cattle - more than 40,000 head when fully stocked - pay the border no mind. Bounded by the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north and a wildlife sanctuary to the west, this is one of the most remote cattle stations in Australia, and it carries a quiet distinction: it has never once been abandoned since it was first settled, making it the oldest continuously occupied pastoral property in the Territory.

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Wollogorang Station: A Name Carried From the South

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The first Europeans through this country were members of Ludwig Leichhardt's expedition, which passed by in 1845 on its epic overland trek from Queensland to Port Essington on the far northern coast. The pastoral lease came later, established in 1881 by the Chisholm family, who s...

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Wollogorang Station: Drugs, Death and Determination

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Few stations have a history this colourful. The Annings sold up around 1906. Decades later the property became entangled with the long-time owner Paul Zlotkowski, who first bought it in the late 1960s, sold it to a businessman named Bela Csidei, and then bought it back from the l...

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Wollogorang Station: The Death of Pablo Balading

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Not every story here is a tall tale, and one of them should never be told lightly. In 2007, Pablo Balading, a Filipino worker, came to Australia on a skilled-worker visa expecting a job at another station. Instead he was brought to Wollogorang to work as a farm hand. He was haras...

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Wollogorang Station: An International Run

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ownership of Wollogorang has lately tracked the globalisation of Australian agriculture. In 2015 the station was bought by the Chinese businessman Xingfa Ma, part of a wave of overseas investment in northern cattle country. Then in 2020 it returned to local hands when the McMilla...

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