RECORD rain in the headwaters of the Diamantina River has sent floodwaters into the homestead of one of the North Australian Pastoral Company’s prime grass fattening properties.

Ex-tropical cyclone Kirrily made its way inland last weekend, bringing widespread rain between 50mm and 100mm across most of Queensland. But an area of north-west Qld, between McKinlay and Kynuna, received some of its highest totals on record – with reports one property had more than 500mm.

The system has since moved up to gulf country, where it is expected to bring considerable rain in the next couple of days.

Speaking of water, this is Kynuna Station in QLD… this is what happens when the great Diamantina River gets a belly full… and some! pic.twitter.com/Ld3h1DSBnc

— RFTTE (@rftte) January 30, 2024

Social media has been awash with pictures of floodwaters inundating one of the more well-known watering holes in Western Qld – the Blue Heeler Hotel in Kynuna.

The pub is not too far from the Kynuna Station homestead, which has also been inundated by the headwaters of the Diamantina River. NAPCo chief executive officer Allan Cooney said the company was still assessing the damage to plant and equipment around the homestead.

Allan Cooney

“All the floodwaters have receded now, but the river did come up into the buildings and it was the highest flood that has ever been recorded at Kynuna by a fair margin,” Mr Cooney said.

“We have never had water in the current homestead, there was a substantial flood in 2018 but it came nowhere near the house. They moved the homestead some time ago to higher ground because the old homestead was right on the river and used to get flooded all the time.

“We are still trying to take an inventory of the flood damage around the homestead, we didn’t get a chance to move much gear because the flood was pretty sudden. There will be some loss of equipment for sure, we just don’t know what equipment yet.”

Stock losses kept to a minimum

Mr Cooney said while it was hard to get onto paddocks to assess any stock losses, he was expecting them to be minimal.

“We were anticipating the weather system to come through so the manager moved the cattle away from the danger,” he said.

“A lot of the station isn’t flood prone, particularly around the western side of the property, you get into some higher downs country – it is not like the channel country with vast areas of flood plain.

“But the flood is unprecedented, it is much bigger than anything we have ever seen before, so we are not entirely sure of the impact on stock. We are in the process of doing an assessment.”

While he was concerned about the forecast of the system turning around and heading south again, Mr Cooney the company was keen to property up and running again.

“That is one of the benefits of being a big company with a lot of resources, we can get people in from other properties and sort things out pretty quickly when others might struggle a bit,” he said.

Kynuna a “powerhouse” in recent years

Large parts of Western Qld have benefited from good seasons in the past two years, including the areas that have seen the big rain in the past week.

Mr Cooney said Kynuna has good seasons in recent years and he was expecting it to benefit seasonally from the latest event.

“It has been a real powerhouse for us in the last few years,” he said.

“We might drown a bit of country in the river with the latest flood, but the rest of the place will go well from it. Kynuna has had a run of good seasons now and it will have another good year this year.”

Good flood heading for the channel country

NAPCo has a significant holding in Qld’s channel country, which normally benefits from slow moving floods. Mr Cooney said he was expecting the latest rain event benefit the channel country.

“There are a huge multiple of variables for those channel floods, it depends on the amount of water in the river and what other water comes in downstream,” he said.

“Winton has had some pretty good rain, some of that gets into the Diamantina as well as the Cooper Creek. There are a bunch of factors at play, but it will be a good channel flood.”