Wikipedia
Nilpena Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a sheep station in South Australia.
It is situated approximately west of Blinman and north of Hawker in the Flinders Ranges and bounded by Lake Torrens.
The property currently occupies and area of .
Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith acquired Nilpena in 1859.
William James Browne owned the property in 1879 when he had the drover Giles take 12,000 sheep from Nilpena and overland them all the way to his new properties Newcastle Waters and Delamere Stations, only 8,000 sheep survived the journey but it was still regarded as one of the most remarkable droving feats in Australian history. Browne appointed Roderick John Matheson to manage the property along with Arkaba Station. Matheson and John Lewis later bought Nilpena with Matheson later buying out Lewis.
In 1925 the Old Nilpena Station was placed on the market for auction, it occupied an area of , and was stocked with over 3,000 merino sheep but failed to reach the reserve price of £11,750.
Matheson still owned the property in 1926 along with neighbouring Warrioota Station which together occupied an area of . He was running about 15,000 sheep across the two properties.
By 1944 the property was carrying 7,000 sheep.
The station received 18 months worth of rain over three days in 1950, some . The property had over completely under water. The managing director of the Nilpena Pastoral Company, Mr. Toll, estimated the property would now have sufficient feed guaranteed for the next two years.
The Fargher family acquired the property at some time prior to the 1980s. Ross Fargher discovered a pristine Ediacaran fossil site in the 1980s that later became the focus of groundbreaking research. The fossils and property featured on the David Attenborough program First Life that was filmed in 2009.