#Strongwomen. "I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful – for all of it." Kristin Armstrong
Jamberoo has a lot to be proud of and it certainly never lacked confidence.
According to the local correspondent for the Kiama Independent in the late 1800’s what it sometimes lacked was musical ability, favourable weather patterns, and a shared view on how to handle young men with too much energy and not enough supervision. The local newspaper shared his views with a straight face.
In 1887, the colony entertained the idea of calling itself “Australia”. Jamberoo mulled over the proposal and showed little enthusiasm.
The local correspondent described the idea as one of those foolish notions the colonial government picked up from time to time. The idea raised eyebrows, conversations carried on at the pub, in the butcher and baker’s shops, and through sewing groups, while the paper moved on. Readers kept pace or fell behind.
In 1890, Jamberoo floated the idea of forming a local band. The correspondent attended the meeting, listened carefully, then reached for the claws. He reported that a gathering of half a dozen Jamberoo cats produced sounds more pleasing than those scraped from the dead fellow creatures used to make catgut strings.
Visitors received a public service announcement. Arrive during band practice and you would understand immediately what the fuss involved. Action taken, reputation adjusted.
The same year delivered frogs. Not a few, not a rumour, but thousands. Captain Garde of the steamer Illawarra stood on deck at Shoalhaven Wharf when objects struck him like hailstones.
Daylight revealed frogs across deck, wharf and water. They fell for ten minutes, arrived in good health, then carried on hopping towards Wollongong as if aerial travel formed part of normal routine. The paper reported it as routine which made it funnier than any embellishment would have.
Then came the larrikins. Jamberoo sat inside a wider Kiama problem that escalated from nuisance to civic emergency. Bridges suffered damage. The town pump broke twice. Horses bolted after deliberate scares. Church windows shattered.
One New Year’s Eve saw 40 to 50 men and boys roaming, singing, hooting and pelting buildings. The court imposed the maximum fine. The community debated stronger measures and ordered a cat o’ nine tails by steamer. The cat arrived.
Threats followed. Actual flogging rarely did. The town demonstrated enthusiasm for symbolism and restraint in execution.
Ambition ran alongside all of this. Jamberoo carried pride in hills, cows and distance from coastal bustle. The paper described it as picturesque and impractical in the same breath. Big ideas surfaced anyway. The district dreamed, announced schemes with confidence, then watched resources thin out. Earnest campaigns appeared, gathered momentum, then quietly dissolved. The effect stayed visible. Later jokes carried extra weight because the groundwork was already in print.
When the nation’s capital was being decided, Jamberoo put itself forward as the Bush Capital. Supporters pointed to green hills, dairy country, space, calm, and distance from Sydney politics. The argument reflected how Jamberoo saw itself. Sydney politicians continued their search elsewhere. The paper recorded Jamberoo’s confidence and the broader response in close succession, then turned the page.
Smaller moments filled the margins. Visitors received warnings about local music. Outsiders earned suspicion, hospitality, then criticism in columns. Public enthusiasm surged, committees formed, and minutes followed. Jamberoo showed itself lively, observant, and fond of commentary on its own behaviour and not happy with Kiama Council governance.
Jamberoo took itself seriously. Very seriously. Reading the paper now, you’re reminded how fortunate it was that these debates stayed on the page and in the pub, rather than being amplified in real time. A band meeting, a capital bid, frogs from the sky, all of it received careful attention and confident opinion. Social media would have been carnage. Half the district would still be making its case.
BTW Did you know this? I didn’t.
Before Federation we were know as The Australian Colonies and legally and politically, it was six British colonies, not a country. On 1 January 1901, the colonies federated to form The Commonwealth of Australia
Old newspapers are a gift. They show us a community concentrating very hard on the business of being right about the small things.
In Jamberoo in the late 1800s, people worried about the name of the colony. Australia felt flimsy. Too casual. Too much like a place where people might relax. A proper society, it was argued, required a name with authority and a whiff of empire. Something that would sit comfortably on official letterhead.
The name survived. It now appears on passports, Olympic medals, and road signs without incident.
Beach behaviour also drew close attention. Men bathing in underwear sparked outrage. Editorials were written. Public standards were defended. The issue hinged on fabric, fit, and the preservation of decency. The town believed civilisation rested on correct swimwear.
Electricity prompted years of debate. Poles were discussed. Tariffs were dissected. Who should pay occupied many meetings. When power arrived, streets were lit and grievances brightened along with them.
Women voting caused genuine concern. Serious men warned it would alter women’s nature, upset social balance, and weaken chivalry. These arguments were delivered with confidence and a straight face.
Marriage advice was also a public service.
In 1886, the Kiama Independent offered bachelors a guide to finding a wife. It advised men to observe women closely in the morning. To check her hair. Her dress. Her energy levels. To assess whether she complained of cold, executed unreasonable projects, or wrote too many letters. A man was cautioned against leading a woman to the altar if she showed signs of extravagance or ambition. A good wife, readers were assured, would not be a boaster and a slattern. This bible of rules was apparently the gold standard.
This guidance was published earnestly. Presumably clipped. Possibly discussed over tea.
At the time, all of this mattered. These were serious conversations held by serious people trying to protect their world from decline, disorder, and women who might write letters.
Seen from here, the intensity is impressive.
Which brings us to the present.
We have our own certainties. Our own moral alarms. Our own debates conducted with absolute conviction. We argue about productivity, visibility, optimisation, self branding, and being constantly available. We hold strong views about how people should live, work, partner, parent, age, and perform success.
Future readers will find these pages too.
They will smile at the confidence. They will marvel at the energy. They will wonder how so much attention landed in such particular places.
History tends to be generous. It shows how people worked with the ideas they had.
The more useful question is which of today’s decisions will still make sense once everyone involved is dead and no one is defending them.
Those choices are rarely the ones anyone is busy congratulating themselves for.
They do not come with rules.
And they show zero interest in what a woman looks like before breakfast.
Over seventy family members and friends recently gathered at Kiama Leagues Club to celebrate Robert (Bob) Young’s 90th birthday. It was a milestone that said as much about the man as it did about the community that has grown up around him.
Robert John Young was born on 30 October 1935 at Lindfield, the youngest son of Eric and Ruby Young and younger brother to Owen and Ron. In 1948 he moved to his mother’s family dairy farm on Riversdale Road, Jamberoo. Apart from a short stint at Westons, the farm became his life’s work. It later became known as Merley Friesian Stud and remains an active dairy farm today.
Bob married Annette in 1962. They raised three children, David, Colleen and Neil, and now have eight grandchildren, Zac, Dylan, Sarah, Callum, Byron, Lachlan, Aiden and Ellis. In 2018 Bob and Annette moved to Blue Haven on Terralong Street, closing a long chapter on the farm but not on community life.
At the celebration, speeches from family and long-time friends returned to the same themes, Bob’s commitment to faith, family and the wider Jamberoo and Kiama communities. His service includes Kiama Rotary, Kiama Show Society, the Jamberoo Golf Club, the Jamberoo Quartet, Jamberoo Rugby League, Jamberoo Tennis, Kiama Anglican and Kiama Men’s and Mixed Probus. In 2011 he received Kiama Council’s Citizen of the Year Award.
The family story of succession began close to home. David returned to the farm as a young man and took up dual careers, dairy farming alongside a growing building business. He kept the farm running during a period when extra hands were needed. When building work picked up and a young family followed, Bob encouraged him to choose the life that made sense. David went on to a successful career across several sectors and later into senior leadership roles with Anglicare, with the full support of his parents.
That choice opened the way for a different form of succession, one centred on opportunity rather than inheritance. The first share farmer was John Deen, who stepped in when Bob was around sixty. The farm then passed to the Grant brothers, early risers and very capable farmers. They were followed by the Honeys, who stepped in at a time when a major equipment failure could have ended the operation altogether.
Today the farm is run by Mat and Sarah Parker. They represent a new generation of dairy farmers locked out of land ownership by soaring prices yet determined to stay in the industry. The Young family’s approach gives them a pathway, a future, and room to grow.
That is Bob’s quiet gift to the valley. A farm that does more than grow grass. A farm that grows farmers. A farm that continues to reflect the values of the man who turned ninety, surrounded by people who carry those values forward.
Did you know Allowrie St Jamberoo was once called George St
Once upon a time, Jamberoo was the centre of the universe on the New South Wales South Coast. People will tell you it was the largest town between Sydney and Melbourne. Drays rattled through, pubs bustled, and blacksmiths hammered away, all thanks to the fact that Jamberoo sat squarely on the main inland route south. Travellers from Sydney would pass through Albion Park, swing into the Jamberoo Valley, then take on the steep haul up Saddleback Mountain before descending into Kiama.
It was not an easy journey, but it kept Jamberoo humming. The town was a natural stop for food, drink, repairs, and gossip. Things got even better in the late 1800s when the Pike’s Cutting was cut, giving a shorter, less back-breaking link to Kiama.
Looking west through Pike’s Cutting towards the Jamberoo Rd
The real change came earlier than many think. Before the first bridge at Minnamurra opened in 1870, the coastal route had a built-in obstacle — the punt across the river. Travellers would roll up, sometimes in carts piled high with produce, only to find a queue of buggies, wagons, and the occasional impatient rider, all waiting their turn.
The ferryman set the pace, and he was not in a hurry. A good crossing depended on the tide, the weather, and how chatty he felt. A stiff breeze might mean you waited longer. A juicy bit of local gossip could mean you waited longest of all. Farmers swapped news, children fished off the bank, and the odd traveller calculated just how much quicker it would have been to go through Jamberoo after all.
When the first Minnamurra River bridge opened in 1870, and later the second in 1890, the days of punt queues were numbered. More and more traffic flowed along the coast instead of inland through Jamberoo. What was later named the Princes Highway in 1920, rebranded to curry favour with the visiting royals. The prince in question, who later became Edward VIII, very nearly brought down the monarchy.
Of course, Jamberoo had faced other supposed threats before, like the Russians. In September 1860, The Kiama Examiner reported on fears that Russia might invade Kiama. Their verdict on Jamberoo’s fate was unforgettable:
“Jamberoo will, of course, escape, as it will be impossible for any army to come up here from the impassable state of the roads. In some future generation their fossil remains would be found imbedded in a strata of yellow clay, which would be all that would be left to tell the tale that a great and mighty army had once invaded our shores.”
In other words, Jamberoo’s best defence in 1860 was potholes and mud.
While the roads were shifting, so was the way people and goods moved between Kiama and Sydney. For decades, ships carried passengers, butter, and blue metal from Kiama Harbour to the city. The arrival of the railway in 1887 changed everything. Fresh produce could reach Sydney markets the same day, and passengers could travel in comfort without braving the sea.
The first government proposal for the rail route actually had it running through Jamberoo rather than Shellharbour. Imagine if that plan had been adopted. Jamberoo would have been on the direct Sydney to Melbourne main line. Butter factories could have sent goods by train instead of cart, pubs would have bustled with passengers stepping off the platform, and the valley would have been plugged directly into the country’s busiest rail corridor.
In the early 20th century, there was even talk of a branch line to Jamberoo when it was thought coal might be found in the valley. Nothing came of it, and the railway stuck to the coast. Jamberoo remained an inland service town, its fortunes tied to dairy farming rather than the booming railway economy.
W.A. Bayley, writing in the 1960s and 70s, told this story with the precise detail of his era, recording dates, council minutes, and route maps in the serious style of mid-20th century history writing. Dr Tony Gilmour’s Rascals and Respectables covers the same territory but with more sparkle. In Gilmour’s version, the stubborn characters, bruised egos, and colourful asides make you wish you could eavesdrop in Jamberoo’s pubs the day the first bridge at Minnamurra opened, or the moment they learned the railway would not be coming through the valley.
Dr Tony Gilmour’s Rascals and Respectables does not just tell you the history of our local pubs, it pours you a pint of it, froth and all. From the days when Jamberoo ruled the coast to the high-stakes drama of the railway line that never came, Gilmour weaves the rise and fall of our watering holes into a tapestry of hysterical anecdotes, petty rivalries, and larger-than-life publicans who could pour a beer with one hand and stir up scandal with the other. It is history with a wink, where every closing time comes with a punchline. You can buy it here: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1348394
Much gratitude to Dr Tony Gilmour and Sue Eggins from Kiama District Historical Society for their anecdotes and fact checking
Top photo: In the 1890s, the men who built the district’s dairy co-operatives would have looked much like this: sleeves rolled up, buckets in hand, and ready to turn milk into a thriving local industry Source . Bottom Image: Jamberoo dairy farmer Vaughn Fleming
Long before Silicon Valley had garages, Jamberoo had cow sheds and the people inside them were doing the same thing: turning a good idea into something that could change the world.
Back in the late 1800s, local farmers were the original founders. They didn’t have angel investors; they had actual angels in the paddock, Australia’s first true blue breed of dairy cattle – the Illawarra Shorthorns with glossy red coats and milk so rich it could launch a thousand scones.
Illawarra Dairy Cows at Kiama Show in 1954
But these “founders” had a problem every modern start-up would recognise: scaling. Sure, you could hand-churn your butter at home, but when Sydney wanted more, you couldn’t just “increase output”, your churn was powered by elbow grease, not electricity.
Jamberoo’s 19th-century farmers were the original start-up founders—innovators who pivoted from failed wheat “product lines” and short-lived sugar cane experiments to pool resources, embrace new technology, and scale their “product” from hand-churned butter in cow sheds to a bold, co-operative dairy industry with world-class practices that proved Australian butter could compete with Europe’s best and disrupted the dairy game.
In 1884, the Pioneer Factory near Kiama opened. It was like building the first app store, one place where everyone could bring their “product” (milk), run it through shared technology (mechanical separators), and ship it to customers far beyond the valley.
Then Jamberoo farmers said, Why should Kiama have all the fun? In 1888, they launched the Jamberoo Co-operative Factory, pooling their cash like an early Kickstarter campaign, only their backers didn’t get T-shirts; they got dividends and better milk prices.
Jamberoo Dairy Co-op c 1950
Soon, micro-startups popped up everywhere:
Waughope Co-op – specialising in high-quality butter, tight-knit supplier network.
Woodstock Co-op – the “fast-scaler,” onboarding more than 50 suppliers in no time.
Druewalla Co-op – the hyper-local player, serving southern valley farms.
Woodstock and Waughope Butter Factories – Photo supplied by Dick Oke
Each was an MVP (Minimum Viable Plant), proving you could make dairying faster, cleaner, and more profitable if you shared tools and knowledge.
Jamberoo dairy farmer Vaughn Fleming carting milk to the factory
Before trucks and refrigeration, local “delivery systems” were powered by horsepower in the most literal sense. Every churn, every can of milk made its way to the factory on drays and carts, navigating country lanes that were often more mud than road. This wasn’t just logistics, it was a lifeline connecting small family farms to the co-operative network that kept the district’s economy thriving.
These farmers weren’t slow to innovate, they were tech-forward before the term existed. By the mid-1880s they were importing the latest De Laval cream separators from Sweden. In the 1940s they were installing milk powdering equipment – basically, creating the dairy equivalent of cloud storage: lighter, easier to move, and lasting longer.
Over time, improved transport and refrigeration meant fewer, bigger factories could handle more milk. Co-ops merged, not as hostile takeovers, but as strategic partnerships to boost market reach. By the 1960s, Jamberoo’s co-op was a serious industry leader, with 74 suppliers producing over 5 million gallons a year.
These were start-up founders with mud on their boots instead of MacBooks, but their mindset was pure innovation:
Spot the inefficiency
Build the tech
Share the risk
Scale the output
They didn’t call it “disruption,” but they did exactly that, transforming a valley of small family dairies into one of the most efficient, collaborative dairy regions in the country.
Read how Jamberoo, legends Kevin Richardson and Geoff Boxsell reshaped how Australians enjoy their morning toast. If you’ve ever spread a creamy, soft blend on your bread without tearing it to bits, you have these two, and their team to thank.
Shoutout to everyone on the Remembering Jamberoo History Facebook page for the photos extracted for this blog. Special mention to Kevin Richardson and Ron Oke
I’ve been commissioned to write a book. That still feels extraordinary to say. Not because I didn’t think I had it in me – but because this book has reminded me of skill sets I had tucked away. Some I’d forgotten. Others I never knew were there.
I can’t give away the title, and I won’t walk you through the plot. But I can offer glimpses. .
A barefoot child on a dairy farm. A marriage that unsettles the whole village. A funeral, too soon. A son who breaks. A woman who does not.
The book is set in the Jamberoo of the early 1900s -back when the land ruled daily life, and community reputation could make or break you. It’s a chance for me to write about the complexity of family grief, the silence that follows a child’s death, and the way small towns handle trauma. It’s also letting me reflect on the burden of stoicism, the quiet strength of women, and the weight of religious and cultural expectations.
At its heart, this is a story about forbearance. About the kind of dignity that doesn’t ask for applause. About how people endure the unthinkable and still show up to milk the cows.
It’s personal work, but not confessional. I’m drawing on history, memory, imagination, and finding in myself a storyteller I didn’t expect to meet again.
This book is not about Jamberoo alone. It’s about what binds all of us, wherever we live. Compassion, endurance, resilience. Love that doesn’t announce itself. Grace in the everyday.
I’m grateful to be writing it. Grateful for the trust, the challenge, and the reminder that even now, especially now, I still have something to say on behalf of the people who came before me .
Despite the relentless challenges—the physical labour, the long hours, and the emotional toll of sustaining a legacy—the passion for dairying persists. For the Irvine sisters, Clover Hill is more than just land; it is a testament to resilience, a beacon of heritage, and a promise of continuity in the face of adversity.
Molly and Olwyn Irvine Photo Sylvia Liber Illawarra Mercury
As in McLeod’s Daughters, the Irvine women of Jamberoo have dedicated their lives to keep Clover Hill Dairies in the family.
Olwyn Irvine, 83 sparks up the combustion stove in the old Jamberoo farmhouse – it will cook the nightly meal and heat water for their daily shower. Her sister Molly, 81 carts in the firewood as she has done since she was a girl. The stove is solid and reliable – a reminder of a simpler life.
“We’ve had this stove for 50 years and never thought to get a new one,” says Olwyn.
Step outside the Irvine’s front door and 30m away is some of the most advanced computerised technology known to the dairy industry. Along with farming partners Michael and Lynne Strong, the four sisters, including Valma and Nola, have helped transform Clover Hill Dairies into one of the most productive dairy farms in the country. Deregulation forced their hand. The sisters, accustomed to sacrifice and hard times, didn’t blink when in 2000 the Strong’s put forward a daring proposal to keep the farm afloat.
Nick Strong continues the Irvine Sisters’ legacy
Clover Hill has been a bit like the television series McLeod’s Daughters. After their father died in 1949, the girls stayed on the land to help their mother run the farm – finishing their schooling by correspondence. They never married or had children and they’ve always lived in the farmhouse, enjoying each others company around the old kitchen table.
Nola, Valma, Olwyn and Molly ( Myra) Irvine with their mother Ivy and father Robert Irvine
In 1939 a battery run wireless was their only link to the outside world, but today a television positioned in the kitchen keeps the women informed.
Valma, Molly and Olwyn continued to play and active role in the dairy into their 80s
In the last two years Valma, 83, and Nola, 78, have died leaving Olwyn and Molly to make the tough decisions. But dairying is in their blood and the women have shown the same resilience their forefathers did 150 years ago.
The original Clover Hill homestead and dairy
The farm has been in their family since 1851, when their great great grandfather James Irvine and his son purchased the land naming it Clover Hill. With 180 degree views of the ocean, the Irish settlers cleared the rainforest and forged a new life for themselves in a strange environment.
Molly and Olwyn’s grandfather James and his wife Sarah ( nee Purnell ) on their wedding day
There have now been four generations of Irvine’s farming on the side of Saddleback Mountain. When the sister’s were young there were 300 dairy farms in the Kiama area – today there are just 30. In the six years since deregulation 50 per cent of dairy farms in NSW and Queensland have disappeared.
Deregulation has halved the farm-gate price of milk, but the drought has been the tipping-point for many asset rich, cash poor farmers who’ve made the agonising decision to walk away from their land.
Those who survived were forced to change. More milk had to be produced to make the same amount of money. A decision was made at Clover Hill to “ramp-up” the operation and to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the farm. It was a defining moment for the Strong’s.
Lynne, a pharmacist for 25 years, gave up her career to return to the land full-time, so too did their only son Nick, who had just completed his HSC.
“Most people sold their cows, but we did the opposite,” says Lynne. “We’re now running four times the amount of cows per hectare than we did before deregulation.”
To finance the move the Strong’s and the sisters sold a 280ha joint investment property out west. With the money they built a state-of-the-art $300,000 milking shed which has the capacity to milk 28 cows at a time. Now instead of 80 cows a day, they milk 300.
It was 28 years ago when Michael, then 23, began share farming at Clover Hill. The women took a chance delegating responsibility of their livelihood to someone so young – but it wasn’t to be their last leap of faith in him.
The sisters had grown up with Australian Illawarra Shorthorn cows (AIS), but Michael was keen to swap the herd for Holsteins, a breed which produces more milk. Just before deregulation they reluctantly agreed.
Each cow is now considered a potential elite athlete and the farm hires a full-time nutritionist to feed them a combination of pellets, vitamins, grain and corn.
“If you change a cows diet overnight and you get it right there’s more milk in the vat the next day, but if you stuff it up you get less milk,” explains Lynne. “The results are instant, it’s just so dramatic. There’s a huge amount of research into the science of this industry.”
Hard work and clever decisions have paid off and now Clover Hill Dairies is regarded as one of the most productive farms in the country, with four of its cows this year becoming Australian record holders.
In the show ring too they’ve had success winning the All Australian Three-Year-Old, the first time the farm has ever taken out the award.
“This farm would be up there with the best in the country,” says Lynne. “But people are out there doing it equally as well.”
The view from Clover Hill is spectacular, but Michael Strong isn’t taking in the scenery. Instead he casts a critical eye over his herd of Holsteins. Despite having some of the best and most productive cows in the country he’s still not content. He’d like all of his cows to reach an elite level.
“When you win at the shows you think well I’ve done an alright job,” says Michael. “But when I stand there and look at the herd, I’m pretty critical, I want them all to look wonderful every day of the week.”
Every 12 months the Strong’s and the Irvine’s reinvent the farm. This year they made another decision to increase milking from two to three times a day -starting at 4am and ending at 10pm.
Nick’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps, although celebrated by both families, also increased the pressure to produce more milk.
“You’ve got to produce a million litres a year to support one family, so obviously we had to double that,” says Lynne. “Now we produce 21/2 million litres and we’re now heading towards three million.”
Before machinery the sisters would have to milk 50 cows by hand twice a day.
“I was very good at milking,” says Olwyn proudly. “‘I used to milk eight cows in one hour and that was good going. It’s hard to deal with all the progress, but we’ve just accepted everything as it’s come, you’ve got to move into the modern world.”
The farm has always been the centre of their lives and they never had any desire to travel overseas or have a family of their own. They still have their jobs around the farm to do, Olwyn mops up the buckets after each milking and Molly teaches the calves to feed.
“We grew up in the war years so I suppose we just stayed on the farm and worked,” says Molly. “I did have some admirers though.” “So did I,” chimes in Olwyn. “But none I wanted to marry.”
Olwyn admits that as a girl she never imagined that the farm would always be her whole life.
“It’s been a hard life I suppose in a way, it’s the same thing over and over, but there’s been lots of pleasures.”
The farm house has always been full of children, either relatives or the offspring of the share farmers working on the farm.
Nick spent his afternoons after school sitting around the Irvine’s kitchen table playing with toy farm animals waiting for his father to finish the milking. Clover Hill has always been his home and the sisters consider him part of their family.
Lynne doesn’t fit the farmer mould and happily admits to never having milked a cow in her life. But having grown up on farms she’s not scared to get dirty and it’s her job to look after the calves. She’s also in charge of the never-ending bookwork and data-entry with each cow having a record since birth.
Since deregulation the dairy is run more like a business. “In one way deregulation was good for us,” says Lynne. “We’ve made wise choices and we’ve become more efficient.”
But it’s been a risk and at times they’ve wondered if it will work – particularly as the drought begins to squeeze.
“The drought is tough, it’s really tough and because the animals are so important to us we don’t downgrade the amount of feed we use, we take the view that the cows are number one in our operation and they have to be looked after. I think though if it goes on for another year all dairy farmers will have to review their situation.”
Grain has doubled in price in the last month and 2007 is already shaping up to be a bleak year for many farms. Thanks to Lynne’s bargaining skills the farm was lucky to have locked in grain at the old price until the next harvest.
The drought has turned cows into a valuable commodity and there are now plans to diversify the business. In the future they hope to sell 30 high pedigree cows a year on the international market – so the dairy won’t be so dependent on the farm-gate price of milk. But first they need to improve their progeny. Twice a year a specialist vet from Victoria transforms a section of the farm into a mini fertility hospital. In August 14 cows of high genetic merit were chosen as donors and were super-ovulated. A week later the embryos were flushed out of the cow’s uterus and viewed under a microscope with the live embryos then being either frozen or implanted into surrogate cows.
“Each year there’s a new development in the research,” says Lynne. “It’s like the dairy industry is the frontier of IVF and I imagine that a lot of the success on dairy farms actually goes back into the human research.”
There have also been massive changes to the farm’s physical boundaries and a road now runs through the middle of the property. To ensure a sustainable and viable dairy long-term, in 1998 they swapped two parcels of non-farmable land for 40 farmable hectares. Today there are seven Torrens Title lots on the 120ha property, of which two-thirds is rainforest, creating a rural hamlet within the working farm.
With the sale of each lot came a list of covenants to ensure Clover Hill Dairies always had the right to farm. There are never any complaints about the odour, the lights or noise and there are strict rules about pets and priority water for the farm.
“It’s a fairly unique situation,” says Lynne. “We have urban and rural co-existing together. “The sub-division has been developed around the dairy and the sizes of the blocks haven’t impacted on the farm at all – most of the lots are rainforest and allow for only a small section of land to be built on.”
But even with close neighbours dairying can be a harsh and isolating life.
“It’s not so much hard work, but hard hours, you get tired of course and you get your down moments when you wish you’d done something else with your life,” says Michael. “But it doesn’t last long, the cows are my passion and that’s what keeps me going.” “I’m always thinking about the heritage of the farm, it’s been such a privilege to live here. The sisters have made a lot of sacrifices to keep the farm going and I’d like to think that there will be a dairy farm on Clover Hill for many years to come.”
This blog post is a reprint of a story by Jodie Duffy in the Illawarra Mercury Weekender 21 October 2006 and is part of the Irvine Family history series
Top photo: In the 1890s, the men who built the district’s dairy co-operatives would have looked much like this: sleeves rolled up, buckets in hand, and ready to turn milk into a thriving local industry 
Illawarra Dairy Cows at Kiama Show in 1954
Jamberoo dairy farmer Vaughn Fleming carting milk to the factory 
