Pioneers in paradise
PEART FAMILY HAVE DEVOTED THEMSELVES TO TURNING WHAT WAS REGARDED AS WASTELAND
INTO A TRUE ARCADIA.
As Rowan Peart sees it, back in the day everyone had cousins in the country and most likely visited them frequently. But with increasing urbanisation that is no longer the case, and the country-city divide is at risk of developing into a chasm. So Rowan and his wife, Maddie, and their extended family are doing what they can to bridge that gap from their home base on Sunnyholt station in the Arcadia Valley in Queensland’s central highlands.
Sunnyholt has been owned by the Pearts since 1964 when Rowan’s father, Wally, and his brother, Robert, both drew blocks in a ballot designed to tame the “tiger country”, which was covered in brigalow scrub, had no permanent water and famously poor soil.
“The Queensland premier at the time, Joh Bjelke Peterson, released 16 x 10,000-acre [4000-hectare] blocks for development,” Rowan explains. “The deal was that if you didn’t improve the land you had it taken off you. Whoever named the
