The historic and highly acclaimed ‘Collaroy Station’ is being offered for sale in early October 2013 by the Forgacs Family of Newcastle.

Situated on the Golden Highway 27 kilometres west of Merriwa in the Hunter Valley, ‘Collaroy’ is about 4,026 hectares of prime agriculture country suited to cropping, pasture improvement and grazing of sheep or cattle. The property is run in tandem with another Forgacs owned blue-ribbon property, the slightly smaller ‘Kuloo’, situated in higher rainfall country 30 kms north running into Coolah Tops, breeding feeder steers from an Angus herd of about 1,400-1,500 females.

The current owners purchased ‘Collaroy’ in 1996 to expand their existing cattle operation on nearby ‘Kuloo’.

A few years later they added an adjoining property, ‘Wynola’, to bring ‘Collaroy’ to its present size. They also effected further improvements, sinking new bores, fencing, erecting a huge roof to the main cattle yards, constructing a large new machinery shed, new manager’s home and re-equipping the historic shearing shed and protecting and preserving the historic buildings.

Collaroy’s history reaches back to the colonial days of NSW and much of the historic links still exist today including an 1880′s sandstone homestead, a sandstone gaol cum store and well, St Mark’s church built in 1870′s, cemetery and colonial carriage barn and stables. ‘Collaroy’ rose to prominence with its much sought after breed of merino sheep known for their high wool cutting yield and recognised at both Australia and International wool shows for the premium quality of wool.

Like most stations taken up in the colonial days, ‘Collaroy’ occupies a prime site. Its rolling, gentle slopes of black basalt soils merging into rich alluvial river flats gives the property a park-like appearance flanked by the picturesque Krui River.

Both ‘Collaroy’ and ‘Kuloo’ are now used primarily for cattle breeding, with all steer calves being either sold-off their mothers to backgrounders or grown out on crop at ‘Collaroy’ to feedlot weights, depending on seasonal conditions.

While most of ‘Collaroy’ is native pasture, about 400 ha is cropped each year to Lucerne and forage sorghum or oats for grazing and fodder conservation. The owners have, historically, adopted a philosophy of soil conservation and encouragement of a broad diversity of native pastures by minimal tilling techniques and higher frequency of stock rotations through the paddocks.

The Angus herd was founded on a base of Hazeldean females and bred in recent years along Talooby and Pine Creek Angus bloodlines. In recent years management has sought to further spread their production risk by purchasing Merino ewes with the view of producing first cross ewes. This commodity risk is deliberately flexible to enable responses to changing market and weather conditions.

The properties are now being offered for sale to allow the Forgacs Family to focus on the growth and diversification of their core business of engineering and naval ship building.

The properties are being offered for sale by Tender with Tenders closing Thursday 3rd October 2013 at 5:00pm.

Area:
4,026 hectares (9,948 Acres) Title: freehold title

Land usage:
Breeding and grazing with some cropping

Land Types:
Suitable for cultivation………………………. 1,677 ha
Grazing country (lightly timbered)….. 2,147 ha
Grazing country (heavier timber)………….82 ha
Lucerne……………………………………………….. 120 ha

TOTAL ……………………………………………… 4,026 hectares

Country:
There is a good mix of country running from open and lightly timbered undulating grazing country including areas suitable for cultivation to low rolling ridges.

Topography:
The topography of the property generally gently undulating rising to rolling low hills as you get further from the river.

Soils:
The soils consist predominately of dark chocolate basalt on the ridges with some areas of sandy clays along the river.
65% Black/chocolate basalt
10% Red basalt loams
25% Sandy clay loams

Arable Area:
It is estimated that an area of approximately 2,000 hectares would arable and suitable for the growing of fodder crops. An area of about 360 ha has been sown to forage oats this year.

Water:
The property is watered from a double frontage to the Krui River, four bores [4 x submersible], four dams and gravity fed water from header tanks to a trough system. The western end of the property has Munmurra River access at the south western boundary and six dams plus a bore which supplies a reticulation system to about half the property.
The bore has the capacity to pump 5,000 ltr/hour equipped with a submersible pump and is cased to 680′ deep. An electric pump pumps the water from the surface to a 125k litre tank which gravity feeds troughs. All grazing paddocks have access to water.

Irrigation Licence:
A current allocation of 208ML of irrigation licence is included in the sale of ‘Collaroy.

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