Honouring a longstanding tradition of progressive grazing techniques, Suz and Guy Lord are proud stewards of Branga Plains – for now and for the next generation.
Story + Photos Kate Newsome
The noise is thunderous as water plunges over the cascade and heavy mist lifts off the gorge. Several locals from Walcha, NSW, are visiting Apsley Falls today after a recent deluge. They lean against their ute trays in the lookout’s carpark, shooting the breeze and talking about the season. “I’m assuming you can’t get around your paddocks much,” someone says to Guy Lord, who’s driven from Branga Plains to see the waterfall in full flight.
Although the heavy rain has brought damaging floods to the Mid North Coast, on Branga Plains the dams are full and the pastures are lush. It’s been a good start to the season on the 4,755ha New England Tableland property, which turns off some of the best grass-fed beef in the country.
Guy has run Branga Plains with his wife Suzanne ‘Suz’ Lord for the past 25 years. But the property has been in Suz’s family since 1929, and pasture improvement has been a priority for each of its 3 generations. According to Guy, the Lords have built on the solid foundations of Suz’s forebears to reimagine Branga Plains into a cattle operation that marries “good genetics” and “good pastures” to create a “good product”.
Back on Branga Plains, Guy has traded his dual-cab ute for the side-by-side for a spin around the station with Suz. Vast plains sweep up into the horizon and warp perspective, so the 5,500 or so head of cattle that spot the hills are only tiny specks: red and black and creamy-white. “You can’t pick performance by coat colour,” Guy says of their herd of mostly Herefords, Angus and Black Baldies.
Cattle mosey up gently to the Lords as they explain how Branga Plains is able to support a year-round supply of top-quality beef, primarily for the grass-fed supermarket trade and their boutique butcher partner: the family-owned and -run Stapleton Family Meats at Gymea, in southern Sydney.
“We’ve got the place divvied up into breeding, growing and finishing,” Guy says. “We breed our cattle to suit our environment. It’s like a recipe for a good cake and you can’t make a good cake without good ingredients.”
Branga Plains maintains self-replacing nucleus herds of purebred Angus and Poll Hereford. Shorthorn and Charolais are also utilised in a crossbreeding program. About a third of the cattle on Branga Plains are Herefords, the rest are Angus and Black Baldies, with a small portion being a 4-way cross (Angus-Hereford-Charolais-Shorthorn). “They’re all very marketable breeds and to get crossbreds, you’ve got to have purebreds,” Guy says.
Nearly all of Branga Plains’ sale cattle are finished on highly improved pastures in a program that has been fine-tuned over decades. “We prefer to value-add to them here for the grass-fed supermarket trade,” Guy says. “Although, in the marketing of our cattle, we’ve got to remain flexible to the price and season. If the price is right, and the weight is right, we do send some cattle to feedlots.”
By understanding the strengths and varying growth patterns of different breeds, and utilising top sires, Branga Plains can have animals ready at different times for their clients. Not to mention, Guy advises, that some markets have a premium. “Don’t disqualify yourself from any premium.”
According to Guy and Suz, getting a live calf is their primary focus when considering genetic traits, followed by carcase characteristics. Temperament is also important: if they’re stirry, the meat might cut dark. It’s also better for stockwork if the cattle are calm and content. These grass-fed animals, Suz maintains, have the best life of any animal going. Guy adds: “And it gives you the best supply of protein – the world’s short of protein.”
“We’re both just so proud of what goes off the place,” Suz says. “And we care for the place, too,” Guy adds.
Can-Ams are used extensively on Branga Plains. Photos Brett Hemmings.
Branga Plains is on Dhanggati country, where the water flows west. Reach down and you’ll have a handful of basalt soil, soaked by natural springs and 900mm of rainfall each year. There are also 5 bores on Branga Plains, from which solar-powered pumps fill 250,000L tanks and troughs in paddocks green as golf-course fairways.
“This country, the rainfall, the soil – the whole Walcha district is a pretty amazing part of the world,” Guy says. “It’s very innovative and productive. We try to be nimble, but I’m a great believer in always looking out for bends in the road, too.”
Seasons on the Northern Tablelands aren’t always kind. At more than 1,200m above sea level, the land is exposed to the harshest of elements including bitter winds that blow up through the gully. Drought, falls of snow, blowing gales and sleeting rains are all too familiar. “Down on that plain is one of the coldest places in Walcha,” Suz says. “It can be perishing, absolutely perishing.”
The squatters and pastoralists who originally took up the Branga Plains run would certainly agree. Those 19th-century landholders relied solely on natural pasture for their cattle, doing little to clean up the scrub and weeds. In 1887, John Fletcher (who had then owned Branga Plains for 40 years) wrote of the “unsoundness of the land and severity of the seasons”.
It was in the 20th century, under the ownership of Suz’s family – the Pyes, that Branga Plains’ pastoral reputation shifted drastically. The district’s newspaper in May 1941 reported that the Pyes had “transformed” Branga Plains into “the finest property in the district”. This was one of many runs on the board for the Pye family, whose Australian agricultural successes trace back to the Third Fleet.
The ships Britannia and Mary Ann transported convicts John Pye and Mary Phillips to the Sydney colony where they married. In 1796, John received his first land grant of 12ha at Toongabbie, which eventually became known as Pye Farm. As a free man, John was soon producing crops that were, by some accounts, far superior to anything reaped at the Government Farm. The Pye family’s acreage, stock holdings, and industry reputation continued to grow – foundations that would one day see their descendants acquire and finance the development of Branga Plains.
Pye brothers, Henry Ward ‘Harry’ and Richard James ‘Dick’ , who bought Branga Plains in 1929, were progressive graziers who ran Hereford cattle and Merino sheep. Within 18 months, they’d built the 12-stand shearing shed that still stands on the property, and had begun to lay down new pastures.
“My grandfather, RJ Pye, was among the first people to take on pasture improvement,” Suz says. “A lot of the pastures that we’ve got go back to the original pastures he did, because they’re based on phalaris and cocksfoot and various clovers.”
RJ Pye’s daughter Shirley married Alexander Rodney ‘Roddy’ McMillan and moved onto Branga Plains, taking over management from 1958 and, ultimately, ownership. Their daughter Suz is the third generation on the property.
Outside might be crisp New England weather, but in the warmth of their 1958 homestead Suz and Guy roll up the sleeves of their work shirts. In the sunroom, light streams through the glass to potted trees, drooping with ripe lemons. Sometimes on wintry days, Suz might take her bookwork for Branga Plains Pastoral Co. out here.
Suz studied at Orange Agricultural College from 1981-82 and met Stuart Lee, who was new to Walcha, in December 1981. They married soon after graduating but Stuart was killed in a plane crash in July 1987. Their daughter, Philippa ‘Pippie’, was born in September that same year.
When Suz returned to Branga Plains with baby Pippie, she worked as a station hand before taking over the office work. She and her mother Shirley were in a partnership for 2 decades until Suz took over as a result of family succession planning.
When Guy joined Suz on Branga Plains in mid-1999, he brought a dossier of contacts and a wealth of experience with him. Guy was a partner in Gorian Hereford Stud in Moree, NSW, where he lived with his former wife Julie and their 3 children, Rodney, James and Edwina.
Guy has served on the board of the Australian Hereford Society, the advisory committee of Meat Standards Australia, and has judged at every major Royal Show in the country, including assessing the prestigious Horden and Urquhart trophies – the ultimate accolade in Australia’s cattle industry.
The new millennium was a time of great change on Branga Plains, with Suz and Guy instigating digitisation and the beginning of using electronic ID buttons on livestock. The station was among the first in NSW to implement this technology and one of the earliest operations in the state to become EU accredited, which guarantees full traceability of their cattle.
If an animal needs antibiotics for a foot abscess or other health issue, the Branga Plains staff will give them treatment as needed, but the animal will get a red button put in its ear. It’s noted on the computer and written in a book: as a consequence, they are not eligible for antibiotic-free markets. “Our product integrity is 100% sound,” Guy says. “Being able to trace animals for their whole life and record things has been marvellous, but boy did we have to battle to get people to take it on board.”
According to Suz, her studies in Orange had given her the “foundation to build the rest of my self-taught, administrative skills – computerising the station books and taking on the livestock recording program, as well as the EU accreditation”.
Branga Plains hosted its final annual Hereford weaner sale in 2000 after almost 30 years. Until then, as Suz explains, the sale, “fitted the feed growth curve because you would be getting rid of a thousand calves or thereabouts in autumn”. “So you didn’t have those mouths to feed as you went into winter to calve. In doing that, this country is so good that, really, you should be fattening animals, not just running fat cows.” But things were shifting on Branga Plains and a new beginning was taking form.
Cattle move along the windbreaks of Leyland cypress trees, down fenced laneways, through the gate and out to the sealed road. To get to the station’s primary cattle yards, the Branga Plains station team needs to take the mob to the Ingleba Creek bridge crossing. The water level has risen after the week’s relentless rain, and they’ll have to wait for it to go down to fix the floodgates. Thunderbolts Way is closed to traffic due to flooding further towards the coast, and landslips nearer to Barrington Tops.
Branga Plains’ operations manager, Chris Bruce, chews on a red shepherd’s whistle, while he, Guy, and station hands Alex Bruce and Troy Tape shout commands to their dogs. Chatter crackles through the two-way radios in each of their side-by-sides. Guy describes Chris and Alex as “fast movers and thinkers”. “And Troy’s like our night horse, he’s there when you need him.”
Alex’s surname is no coincidence. Alex grew up here with his parents and sister after his father, Chris, joined the Branga Plains team in 2007. “Ever since I was a little fella, that was my family home, just over there – where Troy lives,” says Alex, gesturing to one of the houses on Branga Plains for staff members. Alex remembers his childhood as a time of riding his pushbike, training his dogs, and, he admits with a grin, “trying to bludge a day off school here and there to come and work with Dad and Guy”.
In early 2019, Alex moved away to work as a stock and station agent, but 2 years ago he headed back to Branga Plains. “I wanted to get back on the land, with horses and dogs again,” he says. “When this job came up, it was basically coming home again.”
Branga Plains boasts a long history of fine horsemen and -women. Although the staff make use of side-by-sides – particularly if a job needs to be done quickly or they need to carry fencing gear and such – a lot of mustering is still done on horseback.
The team shares the sentiment that it’s often easier to move a mob of cattle on horseback due to Branga Plains’ terrain, with its steep slopes and natural spring-sodden ground. “We’re very grateful that they still use horses here,” Alex says. “Down here in the New England, that’s sort of faded out [on other properties].”
Fellow station hand Troy was also drawn to working with horses. He comes from a family farm near Yarrowitch, south-east of Walcha, and has spent time working on properties near Normanton, Qld. “My old man’s a boilermaker,” Troy says. “Guy had him out here doing a job and said to Dad that they were looking for someone. Dad suggested it to me when I came home from up north.”
Troy’s happy with the move: “I’d rather mud sticking to your boots than dust getting in your clothes.”
An icy wind blows through cattle yards, which are constructed from a mix of new steel and original timber beams. The surrounding hills are socked in by heavy fog and the Branga Plains staff wear jackets over fleeces, and beanies over caps.
Troy and Alex hunt the cattle up through the curved race to the head bail. Guy and Chris weigh each one in, tracking it to their electronic ID buttons. This small mob of 45 needs to be processed and ready to go onto the truck at daybreak tomorrow for the trip to Casino, NSW.
Every 3 weeks, Guy makes the 10-hour round trip to supply Branga Plains’ grass-fed, growth hormone and antibiotic-free beef to Stapleton Family Meats. Guy sees it as a 25-year-long arrangement of “one family supplying another family”.
In the early 2000s, after the last Branga Plains weaner sale, the Lords had a fortuitous meeting with Lennard Blok – who had bought their top pens. Lennard would introduce them to Ron Stapleton, who along with his brother Dennis continued the Stapleton family’s butchery business established in 1896. Suz remembers the day clearly: “We bumped into the pair of them, coincidentally, at the Easter Show a few weeks later, and Ronnie said, ‘Gee, I would love to get cattle like that all year round’.”
“Our alliance with Stapleton was born on a handshake,” Suz says, emphasising that this arrangement has meant “everything” to Branga Plains. “They’re very discerning in the meat they buy,” she says.
“This kind of relationship allows you to go straight to the source,” Guy adds. “Direct alliances in agriculture are very important, whether it’s selling meat or buying hay.”
On the drive along Thunderbolts Way towards Casino, Guy passes Greenwells, a property owned and operated by Suz’s daughter and son-in-law Pippie and Glen O’Brien. Like her mother and grandmother before her, Pippie left the district to study, but maintained a deep affection for the land, country life and Branga Plains.
After completing a bachelor’s degree in rural science at the University of New England, Pippie worked at Purkiss Rural in Armidale before completing her postgraduate studies in agribusiness at Marcus Oldham. In 2021, Pippie moved back to the district from Sydney with Glen, a civil engineer, and their 2 young children, Freddie, 9, and Tallulah, 7. “It’s amazing coming back,” Pippie says. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else to raise our family.”
Pippie has a strong interest in soil science, pasture improvement, and quantitative data, and says she’s keen to keep learning things, trying new approaches and experimenting so that – come the day she takes on the stewardship of Branga Plains – she’ll have the experience and ideas that could possibly be scaled up on the station. “You only do farming if you truly love it, and I truly love [Branga Plains] – that’s home,” Pippie says. “I’m 4th generation, and I want to be there.”
For Pippie, a big part of what defines Branga Plains is “the longevity of it being in the family”. “It’s been through both male and female sides and it’s stayed true to itself,” Pippie says. “Yes, it’s been sheep. But it’s been cattle for a long, long time. It hit another level of production when Guy came in, but it’s always been
quite progressive.”
Although they have been at the helm for nearly a quarter of the time Branga Plains has been in the family, you won’t hear Guy and Suz refer to themselves as “owners”. They have instead inherited – and will pass on – the responsibility of being a steward and a custodian. “Everybody in agriculture in Australia is a custodian of the land, really,” Guy says. Suz agrees, adding that the term ‘owner’ implies that you’re there to make use of the land: “But we’re here to look after it.”
This story first appeared in the 2025 edition of Stations magazine.
