The juiciest rumour - and one still being fanned by Tony Windsor in June before he stepped out of the election battle for New England with Mr Joyce - was that the land would have to be bought back to build the inland railway, a long-term infrastructure policy of the National Party. The proposed 1700-kilometre line would in fact cut through Gwabegar in a section between Coonamble and Narrabri, according to the federal government's most recent rail alignment study.

But there is no indication in detailed local mapping by rail engineers dating back to 2006 that the line would cross the Joyce properties. It would run just metres away from the front fence using a section of the abandoned Gwabegar line.

The other theory among locals is that Mr Joyce must have bought with plans to cash in on mineral wealth in the area. Denis Todd, a farmer from nearby Baradine and a Warrambungle Shire councillor, recalls a conversation with Mr Joyce at a petrol station around 2009.

''I asked him, 'Why did you buy that mongrel country out there? You could have bought better grazing land closer to St George [four hours away from Gwabegar by road],' '' says Todd.

According to Mr Todd, he asked Mr Joyce if he had bought to take advantage of the coal known to run throughout the Pilliga. He says Mr Joyce responded: ''The coal's too deep but there's plenty of gas there.''

''I don't know whether he bought it because of coal seam gas or what. I thought they would put a coal mine there but they didn't,'' says Mr Todd.

Fairfax has spoken to a farmer in the surrounding area who has anonymously posted an aerial photograph of the property and title deed documents. The farmer, who did not want to be named, questioned the investment if it was made on agricultural grounds, saying the pictures indicated overworked, low quality country - or ''mongrel country''.

The Pilliga's real wealth lies beneath the surface. In 2002, a company called Eastern Star Gas focused its CSG exploration in the Pilliga, mainly at Narrabri, about 40 kilometres through the forest from Gwabegar.

In 2005, a year before Mr Joyce bought in, Eastern Star revealed it had already spent $50 million exploring the Pilliga, mainly around Narrabri. At a time when few people had even heard the term coal seam gas, the company had plans for 1100 gas wells dotted across the Pilliga feeding a $150 million pipeline to the Hunter Valley.

CSG wells are normally spaced 500 metres to 1 kilometre apart so the area of the Pilliga to be tapped would be vast under Eastern Star's plans at that time. By 2005, Eastern Star was already feeding into the northern NSW electricity grid through its CSG-fired Wilga Park power station. In February 2007, the company boasted in an update to the Australian Stock Exchange that it had conducted one of the largest ''fracking'' programs in Australia by drilling nine wells and fracturing the coal seam to access the gas. Fracking has since become a byword for environmental vandalism by CSG companies and is banned in NSW.

Those wells were located in the Bibblewindi State Forest on the eastern edge of the Pilliga - perhaps 40 kilometres from Gwabegar through the forest.

Mr Joyce's property at Gwabegar lies inside the ''petroleum exploration licence'' (PEL) areas that Eastern Star - before it was sold to Santos - owned the right to explore. Gwabegar is on the edge of PEL 238 and PEL 428, co-owned by Eastern Star with a company called Comet Ridge. At this time, both companies were issuing positive announcements to the stock exchange in relation to the size of the gas resource in the area.

Another company, Gas Star, owned in Houston released a statement about promising reserves in PEL 433 and 434. This meant that by 2007 - between the two purchases made by the Joyces - CSG companies were boasting of gas reserves to the east, west and south of the properties. All indications were at this time that the gas rush was coming.

In October 2007, Eastern Star appointed former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson as its chairman to steer its proposed growth phase into a ''major gas developer''.

Mr Anderson, who left Eastern Star when it was sold to Santos, is working as the campaign manager for Mr Joyce.

Despite their close friendship, Mr Joyce said he had no idea Eastern Star had a petroleum exploration licence over the Pilliga, including his properties at Gwabegar.

It was four years later in a 2011 parliamentary inquiry into CSG that Joyce first stated publicly that Eastern Star had an exploration licence over his property and that his neighbour had been informed that the company wanted to drill test wells in Gwabegar.

Neighbour Bruce McConaughey, who owns a 3250-hectare stud cattle farm and sheep station, says Joyce was as shocked as he was.

''He was definitely against it. He rang me right back and said 'don't sign anything, don't do anything'.''

Mr Joyce told Fairfax he had ''no knowledge at all'' that the Pilliga would be at the eye of the CSG rush when he bought his land.

He said jokingly: ''I'm happy to sell it, it's for sale.'' He added: ''If someone wants to take it off my hands and make a million dollars, go right ahead.''

Later, Mr Joyce says he has instructed a local land agent to sell if he can get the right price and that he understands the ownership could be ''viewed as a conflict of interest''.

Before any investor jumps at the ''gold mine'' being offered by Mr Joyce, it should be understood that the situation in 2013 is a lot different to 2007 when Eastern Star dreamed of well heads dotted across the Pilliga.

In November 2011, gas giant Santos bought out Eastern Star. By December that year it conceded the company had breached environmental controls in its rush to expand.

Santos committed $20 million to clean up test sites in the Pilliga - some of which had killed animals and left polluted water behind on the surface.

As it faces bitter opposition to its plans in more fertile and more populated areas, like the black soil Liverpool plains, Santos has recently resumed its focus on the Pilliga. But at this stage, the first expansion will occur in the eastern Pilliga close to Narrabri - its first choice reserve.

A Santos worker who spoke to Fairfax Media said drills further west had proved less promising than at Bibblewindi where the company sought state government permission in June to add a further 18 core and test wells. A test drill at Come By Chance, north-west of the Joyce property did not indicate reserves that had been hoped for five years ago.

Mr Joyce has never expressed outright opposition to CSG. Since the 2011 parliamentary inquiry, he has spruiked the need for prime agricultural land to be left alone, water resources untainted but, most importantly, according to him, that a landowner is well remunerated for mining his or her land.