Kooralbyn was one of our great pastoral properties for well over 100 years.

Following Australia's first land boom in 1840, territory outside a fifty mile radius of Brisbane was thrown open to free settlers and from 1842 there was a brisk movement of pastoralists from New South Wales to this rich, fertile country watered by the Logan and Albert Rivers.

The history of Kooralbyn can be traced back to the original settler, John "Tinker" Campbell, one of the earliest settlers in the Moreton Bay District, as the area was then called, and when the property formed part of "Tamrookum Run" in the early 1840's.

Kooralbyn, whose colourful aboriginal name means the place of the copperhead snake, was subsequently owned by William Barker who sold to John Haygarth in 1870. William Barker employed Queensland's first poet, James Stephens, as a private tutor for his family, and it was at Kooralbyn that his first published poem was written ("Convict Once").

In 1890, the property was bought by Wellington Cochrane Bundock. Price paid was 29 shillings per acre.

Over the next 43 years, it remained in the Bundock family and during this period it was developed to its fullest potential as a great grazing property, having splendid well-watered agricultural and grazing land, embracing very rich flats along the creek sections, but consisting chiefly of undulating country, sloping to hills of more or less precipitous character.

The Bundocks were an off-shoot of the famed Ogilvie family of "Yulgibar" on the upper Clarence River, the great 300 square mile station pioneered by Edward Ogilvie in 1840 and who was a descendant of the ancient history making Highland Scottish families of Grant and Ogilvie. For his service at Trafalgar, Commander William Ogilvie, Edward's father, was presented with a large crown grant of land on the Hunter River, to which he gave the name 'Merton' after Lord Nelson's English country seat.

Australian's will never again know anything quite like the pastoral age - it lasted in the grand manner for the best part of two centuries. It brought a special character to this harsh and lonely country and created much of the outback individualism we still recognise as distinctly Australian today. It brought the 'squatter', a special kind of man, to this vast, expansive and unfamiliar landscape.

It was the dynamic squatter, the likes of the Bundocks and the Ogilvies, who had the courage to move out of the unproductive colony around Port Jackson and follow the tracks of the explorers into the hinterland where they struggled to build and rear against the savage moods of this strange raw land.

George Farwell, in his moving narrative 'Squatter's Castle', tells the story well of this great pastoral dynasty and the agonising struggles these two families faced in their attempts to produce fortunes few others could amass in the colony during the same era.

Fashioned after Nelson's villa at Merton in England, the great stone castle, "Yulgibar" was the scene of Edward Ogilvie's dogmatic ambition to create his own Ogilvie dynasty but which, however, led to a splintering of his family and which soured his children's inter-family relationships for many years, even after his death. His sister, Ellen Ogilvie, married Wellington Bundock in 1841 and went to live on her husband's property "Wyangarie" on the Richmond River. They had four sons and two daughters.

Moving further northward, the Bundock family later acquired 'Natal Downs' station, just south of Charters Towers, comprising some 1000 square miles of open rolling country. It was the four brothers - Charles, Frank, Edward and Henry who settled and developed his huge holding. Prior to the great drought of the 1890's, this station carried over 30,000 head of cattle and 400 thoroughbred horses. Some 27,000 head of cattle perished, and only 2 thoroughbred mares survived during the terrible few years of the drought which brought ruin to many pastoralists in Queensland and New South Wales.

A private bank was able to give assistance, the Bundock brothers kept their holding, and fortune smiled on them again within a few years. The Bundocks bred many champions of the Australian turf over a 40 year period. They won the Sydney Summer Cup and the Queensland Cup in 1905, and were renowned for their great string of thoroughbred stallions. They bred such famous horses as "W.W.C.", The Dean, Normandy, Grandchester, Luzon and Blue Book.

The original owner of Wyangarie, Mr Wellington Cochrane Bundock, died before the disastrous drought. However, he had bequeathed the beautiful property of Kooralbyn to his son, Charles Wyndham, who retired from Natal Downs to live at Kooralbyn, but worked it as a cattle fattening property in conjunction with Natal Downs.

Mr C.W. Bundock lived at Kooralbyn for some 15 years. He was a breeder of beef shorthorns and blood horses. He used to judge at the Brisbane Exhibition and was a member of the Moreton Rabbit Board. For some 12 years or more he was President of the Logan & Albert Jockey Club and was a member of the Queensland Turf Club and the Queensland Club. He married Miss Scarvell, daughter of a Sydney solicitor; she was a very keen floriculturist and the Kooralbyn gardens, famous throughout the South Coast district, were largely due to her directing skill. Unfortunately, whilst picturesquely built in the style of a now remote period, Kooralbyn homestead was burnt to the ground some years ago. The Beaudesert Fire Brigade received a call in the early hours of 4th October, 1971, - it was already too late - nothing could save the old building. All that remains today are a few bricks from the original fireplace at a spot roughly a few hundred yards from the north western end of the present airstrip. Invaluable relics and old photographs which had been gathered by previous owners were destroyed.

A substantial, square roomy house with wide verandahs, gave it the general aspect of prosperity and homeliness. The site was a fine one, commanding splendid views of Mount Kooralbyn, one of the border peaks standing sentinel-like with greater prominence, nearer at hand.

This mountain, from which the property takes its name, is over 1,300 feet above sea level and from its crest a magnificent panorama of the surrounding country is obtained.

In 1933, Kooralbyn was sold to J.J.M. and D.E. Redmond who held it until 1950, when Mr & Mrs W.H. King bought the property. At about the same time they also owned several other famous grazing properties including Forsdale, Kengoon, Pialah, Molesworth and Dingley Dell. Wally King was a champion Hereford breeder and studman, and on retirement in 1963, the property was sold to the Australian Estates (Pastoral) Company Pty Ltd. In 1969, Henry Clarke acquired Kooralbyn, and held the property for about 4 years.

In 1973 the total area of Kooralbyn was acquired by Sir Arthur George and Sir Peter Abbels who conceived the concept for the development of Kooralbyn as planned residential resort community with funding support from the Australian Guarantee Corporation (AGC).

Several years later the project was taken over entirely by AGC who developed much of the infrastructure we see today including the championship 18 hole golf course, airstrip, country club, Lodge Motel and private villas.

In 1986 AGC sold part of the western valley comprising some 1800 acres to the Gordon family who held adjoining substantial land holdings. At the same time the remaining land holding, comprising some 11,600 acres was sold to Towa Resorts Australia, a company associated with a Japanese leisure and resort property company, Towa Kohmuten.

In 1991 the new resort and par 3 golf course was completed at a cost of over $28 million. The Kooralbyn Hotel Resort now provides visitors and residents with an international standard resort hotel from which to explore the many and varied delights of the 'Valley of Hidden Pleasures' as Kooralbyn is now referred to by many.

In September 1997 a New Zealand company under the ownership of Ray Schofield, and accomplished horseman and hotelier, acquired 800 acres comprising the gold course, equestrian areas, Lodge Motel, country club and The Kooralbyn Hotel Resort from the previous Japanese owners. Shortly after control of the remaining property areas passed to QM Properties, one of Queensland's most respected property developers.

In a manner fitting of its past both owners of the resort and the property holdings are keen lovers of horse flesh. One of Queensland's largest thoroughbred horse studs, 'Glenlogan Park', part of the QM Properties group is located a few miles from Kooralbyn.

"Tis not in mortals to command success: But we'll do more Sempronius - We'll deserve it."

In the written history of Kooralbyn, these lines were quoted of Charles Bundock, the man most responsible for bringing the property to its greatest peak as a cattle holding. No less today are the words also true, they were apt in referring to the early pioneers who faced such trying hardships - but equally so they belong to the present generation of planners, engineers and construction people and their determined efforts to bring in a totally new concept in community living for all to share.