Dressed in camo clobber, I spied on the passing parade of mostly deer and marsupials such as pretty-faced wallabies and mountain wallaroos.

Up in my American tree-stand, I was a zillion miles from the woes of the world.

In the eyrie at dusk and dawn the focus was the coming and going of the wildlife.

I dutifully recorded it all with a 300mm digital lens.

Since most animals don't look up for threats, none spotted me.

From my high seat I could peer across deep, forested gorges into NSW and on a northern boundary, watch predator and prey prowling along the dingo fence.

After a mid-morning snooze in the turn-of-last-century clapboard homestead, my mate Rob and I might go fishing for cod or yellowbelly in big holes along the river, read or drive into town: historic Stanthorpe.

The 5000 acres of taprock country is Povertyville for graziers, but a haven for outdoor types is my biggest indulgence. Just ask the Redhead.

I'd visited the property as Bob's guest several times, so when a rare opportunity to buy one of the dozen tightly-held shares in the picturesque place became available at a bargain price three years ago, I lashed out.

The station is set in hill country three hours from the coast, on the fringe of the so-called Granite Belt, where trendy wineries flourish by the highway.

In 1981 a retired game biologist bought the run as a trapping base to supply the then booming deer farming industry with fallow released in the district in the 1870s.

He sold out later to an organised syndicate of deerstalkers.

They were mostly businessmen and professionals from Brisbane and Toowoomba.

There's no domestic stock, so no huge running costs, but we have a rifle range, venison processing room, plenty of dams, bush roads, plant and equipment.

It's way off the beaten track and there's no electricity half the charm but there is a phone.

I can stay as often or as long as I like, bring in friends or family, and sleep in the comfortable three-bedroom homestead or bunk in the converted shearing shed.

Best of all, we make the rules and no bigoted politician can take the place away.