By Helena Adeloju
After more than 100 years, the Bourke family’s connection to Monomeith Park House will finally be coming to an end, and it will be heartbreaking. HELENA ADELOJU reports.
“I want the place to continue on as a beef property. I’ll be happy if it goes to a good person”
Monomeith Park House is surrounded by what seems like endless paddocks of prime beef cattle country, and it couldn’t be more aptly named.
Set on 228 hectares, the park is said to take its name from an Aboriginal word meaning pleasant, welcome, rejoice and beauty.
Monomeith describes the historic house and surrounds, but also captures the warmth of the current residents and the experience of visiting the property.
Robert Bourke grew up at Monomeith Park and his childhood memories of carrying a football under his arm everywhere he went, fishing for tadpoles and building a hut so high up a tree that he could see Kooweerup are still vivid.
Since putting the property on the market he is slowly coming to terms with the prospect of saying goodbye to generations of his family’s history.
Monomeith is heritage listed by the Shire of Cardinia because the house, which was built about 1899, and trees represent a long-term farming enterprise carried out by one family.
The old woolshed, and early picket fences and gateways that survive along the frontage and in some of the paddocks are a reminder of times gone by.
The large double-fronted weatherboard verandah farm house has been home to the Bourke family for more than a century.
There are many larger-than-life personalities, famed horses and family achievement associated with the Bourke name and the Monomeith property, but Robert said his best memories have come from the past 27 years he has lived there since he married Vivienne.
“Getting married to Viv has got to be a highlight,” he said.
“She became my co-partner in the cattle.”
He said he could never have run Monomeith without her.
“You’ve got to have two people and she was willing and she was very able with cattle.”
Being able with cattle is something of a Bourke family trait.
Three generations of Bourkes have run livestock at Monomeith Park. At first sheep and cattle but from the late 1940s Monomeith became synonymous solely with beef cattle production.
True to family tradition, Robert said the greatest wrench will be saying goodbye to the cattle when the property is sold and he and Vivienne move for good.
“I’ll miss looking at the cattle every day,” he said.
“You check them and you get to know them.”
Robert will especially miss Wooley, the twenty-one-and-a-half month old Angus steer that was born in the Woolshed Paddock and that he reared from a calf.
“He’ll obviously have to go one day,” he said pensively.
As well as his cattle Robert said he will also miss adding to the herd and being able to pick out “quiet cattle” on sale days.
Vivienne will miss her cattle too. She owns cattle in her own right and said she enjoys working alongside Robert most of all.
“I have enjoyed doing all the cattle work,” she said.
“I love all the open spaces and just being with Robert and doing things together.”
Recently there has been less time for cattle work, with maintenance taking up most of their time.
Robert decided it was time to slow down when he fell ill and spent eight days in hospital last year while Vivienne was away
“Your health comes into it,” he said.
He had previously left Monomeith in 1960 when he moved to Melbourne to study to become a certified practising accountant and trained with the Hawthorn Football Club for the first two years.
Robert worked in Melbourne for more than 20 years, first for Standard Steel and then Prentice Builders in Hawthorn.
Following the death of both his parents and his brother David’s retirement from cattle work, the decision to sell Monomeith or move back to the family homestead fell to Robert.
“I came back on the land in 1985,” Robert said.
“I always thought I would. When I came back I was a lot younger than I am now.”
Back on the land after 25 years away, Robert met Vivienne while he was a member of the Melbourne Hunt Club Committee as well as its Honorary Secretary.
“He was a bachelor,” Vivienne said smiling.
“I used to show ponies and I met Rob at the hunt club. He used to come to some of the shows with the ponies and we used to go hunting together.”
When they were married, Vivienne became Robert’s “co-partner” in the work of restoring the house and building up the cattle.
“There was a lot of work to do when I came here,” Vivienne said.
“Renovating the whole house and painting it all,” she said.
“I was living on ladders.”
But the cattle work is what stands out in her memory.
“We had a lot of cattle work to do and we used horses to move the cattle,” she said.
“All the cattle were brought in on horseback.”
Their hard work paid off.
“From that time we had some very big turn overs in the cattle,” Robert said.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses at Monomeith Park.
Robert’s experience first experience of extreme wet came in 1989 when he had not long returned from his “cushy life in Melbourne”.
“That was one of the greatest lessons I ever learnt,” he said.
“I just didn’t think it happened here. I’d never see it as a kid.”
It happened again with 1991, 1995 and 1996 delivering “terribly wet years”.
Robert remembers one journalist describing the mud laden expanse of land that extended down to South Gippsland as “paddocks from hell”.
Throughout the good and bad years Vivienne kept her ponies going on the side.
“I used to go to some of the shows with her,” Robert said.
“I was the float driver.”
At the same time Robert, who at one time dabbled in breeding racehorses, maintained his love of racing.
“Racing has been a big interest for me,” he said.
Now that most of their friends are too old or have passed away, Robert doesn’t get out to the track very much.
Vivienne’s show ponies are gone now and Robert’s days of breeding racehorses are well and truly over, but what remains for both of them is their love for Monomeith and beef cattle.
Robert said the sale of the property will mark the end of an era but he has one last wish for Monomeith.
“I want the place to continue on as a beef property,” he said.
“I’ll be happy if it goes to a good person.”
