Page 20 - Ourstories_Preview

20 | OUR STORY: INGLIS H Y D R O S M A R T

Inglis family

LOCATION: Merriton and Glendambo
FARMING SINCE: 1873
OPERATION: Beef cattle and broadacre cropping

BY QUINTON McCALLUM river 3km away. They had to chop down a few
trees and use mud and sticks to make shelter
LOT has changed in the 150 years the Inglis to live in.
family has been farming at Merriton in the “There was no food - it took a fair few years to
Astate’s Mid North, but their passion for the get it cleared to actually start making money.”
land and for agriculture is as strong as ever. Andrew inherited his father’s property in 1890
The current custodians of Ingleside include and had expanded his holding to 1620ha by
husband and wife Lin and Maureen, their son 1904.
Sam and his wife Jade, and their daughters Adele The property remained a similar size as it was
and Eliza. handed down through the generations in the
They run a commercial cattle enterprise and first 100 years.
cropping operation across three parcels of land Starting with Andrew Inglis in 1873, in 1973
- at their home base Merriton, 17 kilometres the property was being managed by Andrew
south west of Crystal Brook, another 15 minutes (Snow) Inglis with the support of sons Andrew
west at Wandearah and Wirraminna Station, via R. and Lin. Three generations of Inglis’s
Glendambo. While Snow moved to Crystal Brook to live - Lin and Maureen, Adele and
Their forebears would look on with pride at what with wife Gwenda in 1972, he made the 17km Eliza, and Sam and Jade, at the
has grown from humble beginnings. trip out to the farm each day for the next 27 family’s signposted track.
The cattle enterprise is award-winning, while the years.
cropping side uses all the latest machinery and
technology. Lin and Maureen settle in
Scot arrives with big ambitions Lin and Maureen, who met through Rural Youth,
moved into the Ingleside homestead following
Two Scottish emigrants, the 32-year-old their marriage in February 1973. no motorbikes and stock work was done on
Andrew Inglis and his widowed father Samuel, Besides a four-year stretch at a boarding school horseback.
first set eyes on the wooded slopes near in Adelaide, which he said was “more than “(Then) 100 years before that there were still
Merriton in 1873. enough”, Lin has lived at the property his entire horses.
Andrew bought 270 hectares when the Crystal life. “All of the different machinery that has been
Brook district was opened up for selection, The couple say the change they’ve witnessed developed in the past 50 years tells a story of how
while Samuel bought 223ha of his own. in the past 50 years has been nothing short things have changed.”
It was a tough slog in the early years, Lin said, of enormous, with machinery and technology They say the differences can be stark.
with no fences, no stock and no income. making farming far more time efficient and larger “I had to wait a half hour for a load of super in
“When my great great uncle Andrew and his scale. Port Pirie the other day and the bloke behind me
father came here, they rode here on horseback “The change has been absolutely huge,” was complaining,” Lin said.
with an axe,” he said. Maureen said. “We used to have to go and get bags, lump
“There was no water - the water was at the “When I came here 50 years ago there were them around, then wash them out afterwards.”

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