Cultivating a new cash crop

Enterprising farmers provide the opportunity for PHILIP GAME to discover the real Australia.

Stay a few nights in the bush in the real Australia and bush balladeer Banjo Paterson's Clancy of the Overflow rings true. "And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him ... "

Across Australia, enterprising farmers are cultivating a new cash crop of city-bred visitors by converting disused cottages to holiday cabins or refurbishing the homestead as bed-and-breakfast accommodation.

The properties are as varied as the people. You can make yourself at home in an artist's retreat in the Snowy Mountains, round up sheep in western New South Wales or help harvest peanuts on the rich, red soils of Queensland's Darling Downs.

Belinda Nixon, who chairs Australian Farm and Country Tourism, runs a century-old, 1600ha property in the New England region of northern NSW.

Her visitors often remark that their stay at the four-star Oakhampton Homestead was their first chance to get to know native-born Australians (marsupial ones, too).

As a bed-and-breakfast guest, you can choose total involvement in the life of the property by joining in the milking and other daily chores, or you may prefer the privacy of a detached cottage - often shearers' quarters, or an older homestead.

Star-struck lovers can find splendid isolation, miles down a bumpy track, surrounded by those friendly voices: the raucous call of the kookaburra, the screech of sulphur-crested cockatoos and the steady hum of cicadas.

Sue and Ian Haslingden let a self-contained cottage on Inglewood, their sheep farm in the Monaro Tablelands, south of Canberra. Wal's Place commands an open ridge above the Delegate River, which loops the property. The idiosyncratic house of stone and adzed timber is a true artist's retreat, designed and constructed by the late Sydney painter Wallace Thornton.

Three days' drive to the north, another creative but less flamboyant soul has bequeathed his own retreat. On the rich, red soil of the Darling Downs, north-west of Brisbane, Ernest Meares staked out Surrey Park, clearing the native forest and planting the first crops in 1912. He had a keen interest in photography and thousands of his negatives remain as a pictorial encyclopedia of his decades on the land.

The pastoral scenes which inspired Meares can be captured by any overnight guest at Surrey Park.

Owners Doug and Aileen Findlay, whose homestead lies across the valley, rotate their pastures between sunflower, sorghum, peanuts and fallow - allowing the soil to regenerate. They also raise geese, pigs, cattle and horses.

Greylands Farm bed-and-breakfast, in the sheep country west of Orange, is not an intimate retreat. Bill and Enid Niven's guests don't shut themselves away for long. Come only if you want to be part of the family and explore the family tree documented on the walls of a bungalow which has grown, layer after layer, for 86 years, like one of the huge old gums down by the river. Glass cabinets are crowded with aboriginal stone tools, grandfather's cricket trophies and ancient jars of prize-winning honey.

Enid's new-found enthusiasm for the hospitality business builds on a lifetime's impromptu family hospitality whenever the prodigal brood return from the Big Smoke. The result is an authentic, enthusiastic, even overwhelming welcome.

At the wheel of her truck, Enid leads the tour of Greylands' 280ha, most of it flood-prone and supporting around 900 fat lambs cross-bred for the table. One section adjoins the densely-forested low hills of Nangar National Park. Citrus and figs thrive in the home orchard, but the Nivens no longer try to cultivate melon or pumpkins as cash crops. Like so many other older rural Australians, the Nivens, after years of poor returns, hold no great hopes for the future of the property.

Their offspring show no leanings towards a lifetime of hard work and heartbreak: the last major drought compelled a slaughter of starving sheep.

In lush country near the coastal resorts of southern Queensland, Susan River Homestead exemplifies a larger enterprise whose guests enjoy motel-style accommodation and amenities, including water-skiing and pony rides. Dinner is often interrupted by the clatter of hooves when bush poet Guy McLean rides in astride his stallion, Nugget. The Horseman from Susan River moves some guests to tears with his recitals of his own and Banjo Paterson's verse.

Casenotes

Belinda and John Nixon, Oakhampton Homestead, Manilla, near Tamworth, NSW. From $A135 ($162) each a night. Ph (00612) 6785 6517.

Sue and lan Haslingden, Inglewood, Bombala, NSW 2632. Ph/fax (00612) 6458 3330. From $A30 each a night. Accommodation for up to six people.

Doug and Aileen Findlay, Surrey Park, MS 189, Kingaroy, Qld 4610. Ph (00617) 4164 5507. Cottage $A60 daily, A$360 a week, accommodates five. For full board add $A30 each (horse-riding included). Surrey Park is 28km south of Kingaroy, 234km north-west of Brisbane, close to Bunya Mountains National Park.

Enid and Bill Niven, Greylands, Escort Way, Eugowra, NSW 2806, ph/fax (00612) 6859 5223. 11km Eugowra, 71km Orange (air services). Two queen bedrooms, 1 triple share. From A$80 double.

Susan River Homestead Resort is 3 1/2 hours north of Brisbane, close to Hervey Bay airport. Swimming pool, tennis, sauna, spa and gymnasium. Licensed restaurant and bar, three-star residential accommodation for 60. From $A55 each, twin share. Ph (00617) 4121 6846, fax (00617) 4122 2675.