Goodbye sheep, hello horticulture
In fact, there's very little sign of the Merino enterprise that was once the station's main focus.
Sixteen years ago, Sholto decided to make the move from sheep to horticulture.
He looked into table grapes, wine grapes and citrus, before deciding to plant the whole property to almonds.
"People around here were diversifying into irrigation," he said. "I thought, 'well we've got the river there, we've got an allocation of water, why don't we try something different? Also the weather conditions around here aren't terribly reliable, you gave more dry seasons than you do wet, so we thought we'd diversify."
After a year-long course learning about growing almonds, the first trees were planted in 1998. But Sholto says the change wasn't without its challenges.
"We did make mistakes," he said. "I was [nervous] about the change....I decided if I was to do this, we'd have to put 100 per cent of our efforts into the almonds and we had the sheep as well, so something had to go and so the cropping side of the venture disappeared and in hindsight was a good thing, because after 2000 we had nearly nine years of drought. So I think it was a good choice."
While he won't stay in almonds forever, Sholto says he'll stick with the industry for now.
"We're riding the crest of a wave at the moment and I have no regrets at all," he said. "For the moment, the almonds are paying well and the industry is growing, so I'd say we'd be in it for the next ten years or so."
Source: abc.net.au