Anne Creek Station is a cattle ranch, located in the state of South Australia with an area of 24,281 km2, 2,428,100 hectares, which is the equivalent to the area occupied by Israel or the autonomous community of Galicia.
The Anne Creek Station ranch has belonged to different owners from its beginnings in 1858. Originally, it was purchased by Julius Jeffreys, John Warren and William Bakewell and was mainly dedicated to sheep, with more than 7300 sheep, which were continuously attacked by dingoes, a subspecies of wolves from Australia. After having several managers in charge of the administration of the ranch, Malcolm Reid and Leslie Taylor took over in 1918 and in 1935 it became of Peake Station and Kidman Holdings, whose representative was Sir Sidney Kidman, an Australian merchant and distant relative of the actress Nicole Kidman. He had a great talent for business, which led to him obtaining more than 100,000 km2 in ranches, a surface area similar to the extension of Iceland.
Anne Creek Station currently has more than 150,000 heads of cattle. It is 160 km east of Coober Pedy Road, the nearest urban center with just over 1,600 inhabitants and is part of the bottom of Lake Eyre. It should be noted that Anne Creek is located in one of the driest areas of the Australian continent, where there are long periods of drought, with annual rainfall that does not exceed 140 mm per year of rain that hinders the economy and the subsistence of the ranch. Since the 2001 drought, the ranch has not gone through its best times. TImes of abundant rainfall are expected to return, and the ranch will be able to take the water from the bottom of Lake Erye located on the ranch to be able to supply livestock for several seasons and blossom life on the ranch.
Currently, the ranch is still owned by Peake Station and Willian Cattle Company, who acquired the Kidman’s share in 2016.
In spite of the great size of the surface and the number of heads of cattle of the biggest ranch on the planet, there are only 8 workers – administrators and a cook. They live in surely one of the calmest, least crowded (if you don’t count the cattle) places on the planet, where the mail arrives twice a week, and where there is television and internet.