De Grey Station - WA

The De Grey Station was the first settled pastoral station in the area. It was taken up by Walter Padbury in 1863. The next owners were a syndicate of Messrs McKenzie, Grant and A W Anderson. The owners and syndicates have altered over the years, but De Grey Station has always been significant to the district. Primarily set up as sheep station, it boasted 74,000 sheep in 1890. In 1979 the owners converted to cattle, as for most of the stations in the area. Atlas Iron mine site takes up 278 hectares (687 acres) on the station and is situated approximately 10 kilometres south from the station homestead. It remains a working cattle station but does not offer a tourism facility. Nearby, visitors can go to Pardoo Station (which in 1969 was created as a outstation of De Grey.Mark Bettini is the co-owner and manager of Bettini Beef – a family business which manages 5 cattle stations across 1 million hectares in the Pilbara region of Western Australia including De Grey Station.