While the once booming wool industry has long been vacant from the paddocks of north-west Queensland, the Lynch family from Viola Station, near Julia Creek, have been battling the environmental and market conditions to make sure some sheep stay in the area.
They run one of the most northern shearing sheds in the country with about 4,500 head of merinos.
Cattle is the main business on the station, but the owner John Lynch says having grown up with sheep he cannot imagine having a property without them.
"It's engrained in me after so many years of working them," he said.
"We've got a good set-up here and it's just that little bit of diversification."
Mr Lynch grew up on another property with 30,000 head of sheep and said while the numbers had decreased he had no intention to destock further.
"I've come down to a level where I'm happy with that quantity and we've replaced infrastructure on that area that they run on," he said.
"We've put the dollars into that so we're not about to decrease."
Shearers moving on
With the growing prominence of the cattle industry in north-west Queensland no shearing teams are based in Julia Creek anymore.
Winton-based Arno Grotjahn makes the 300-kilometre journey to the station every year, with his team, to shear what is left in the area.
"This is probably the furthest north sheep in Australia — there's no more after here," he said.
Mr Grotjahn said when the sheep industry was booming in Julia Creek it was one of the most popular spots in the country for shearers.
"The sheep were really good shearing, you had to wait for someone to die to get a job up here," he said.
"All the hotels, you couldn't get a chair there, it was just packed full of shearers."
Mr Grotjahn said it was hard to keep work up to his team these days and he was hoping for a resurgence in the industry.
"Even half as good [as it was] will be good," he said.
No plans to exit
While the Lynch family had no plans to go back to large-scale wool production, the long-term plans were to keep the small herd of sheep.
Helen Lynch says, with new shearers quarters being built on the station, the family is passionate about wool and sees longevity in the industry.
"The world will always have a place for wool and that feels really good to keep that going," she said.
"Industries are already creating some amazing products with wool and not just clothes."
