REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Wednesday, October 28, 2004

WYARALONG grazier Michael Joyce didn’t mince words when asked what he thought of the plan to dam the valley which has been in his family since 1885.

“It’ll be a pisshole in the snow,” he says.

“I’ll be surprised if they build it, I think it will be a disaster.

“On their records this dam

would be empty one year in every eight if they’d built it 10 years ago.”

Mr Joyce and his wife Jan had worked their 2266ha property, called The Overflow, for more than 36 years.

They raised their three children in the amazing twostorey homestead – just as Mr Joyce’s father and his grandfather did before them.

“My grandfather bought this place in 1895. It’s split between the Boonah and Beaudesert

shires,” said Mr Joyce.

“My grandfather raised nine children here, my father and eight girls.

“My father had been living up in the Dawson country but decided he had better come home when his father died.’’

In 1968 Mr and Mrs Joyce, “and the bank”, bought The Overflow from his father.

The property featured hundreds of blue gum, ironbark and spotted gum trees, as well as 16 dams and three creeks.