Outback rain gives desperate farmers welcome options days from Christmas

Hardly any rain had fallen on Allandy Station in the 11 months leading up to the day Georgina and Terry Luckraft’s fortunes changed. 

The prolonged dry spell had not been helped by recent temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsuis.

Things were looking dire for the Luckrafts.

“It’s just gone backwards so quickly in the past couple of months,” Ms Luckraft said.

The cattle and sheep producers were in the process of preparing to get all their stock removed from their station. 

‘Life changing’ rain

That all changed when more than 50 millimetres of rain fell at their far western New South Wales home.

Ms Luckraft said she and her husband had gone from feeding up their livestock in preparation to be trucked out to keeping them at “home”.

“It’s absolutely life-changing,” Ms Luckraft said.

The Luckrafts and their three young children had missed most of the falls that rolled through the region during the year.

Ms Luckraft said the decision to de-stock was not easy. 

“You’re there for the animals and you’re there for the lifestyle and when the whole point of what you’re there for starts to unravel … it’s absolutely heartbreaking,” she said.

With creeks running, the Luckrafts hoped to capture enough water to sustain them for a hot summer and beyond.

“We’ll have a lot of water to get through, which you know [will] last a year or possibly two years if we really don’t have any more falls on it,” Ms Luckraft said.

Tammy Brown at Reola Station, 380 kilometres north-east of Broken Hill, received a welcome 58 millimetres of rain.

“We’ve tried to destock quite a few of our goats … but stock prices and the demand for goats hasn’t been that great,” she said.

“So, it has been challenging to get rid of stock off our country.”

The Browns also received 26 millimetres in early November but, before that, their last solid rain was in January 2021.

“It’s been a while coming and we feel very lucky to have gotten what we got,” Ms Brown said.

Yesterday’s rain … has filled the house tank, which hasn’t been full for a long time.”