I have decided that instead of doing a brief history of places we stop at and travel through in their blog entry I will group some together and do a history of them. That way readers that are interested in the history of places can read the history posts but if you aren't interested you can just skip them.
Barcaldine - was founded in 1886 and has a present population of 1600, the annual rainfall is 475mm and the winter dry seas. temp. is 0 and rises in the summer wet season to 45 C. It is home to the Tree of Knowledge which is a monument of the Ghost Gum which grew outside the Railway Station for over 180 years but was poisoned in 2006 by an unknown culprit. Barcaldine is also home to the first free flowing bore in Qld sunk in 1886 - Barcaldine's artesian water is some of the purest water in the state and is naturally filtered.
Longreach - started life as a modern town just over 120 years ago and the name is derived from the 'long reach' or waterhole of the Thomson River used by drovers as a place to rest their cattle and horse plants before heading 'further out'. Longreach's main street, Eagle Street, was lined with hotels by the 1950's and the town common was home to large numbers of goats. Today it is very different - the goats are gone and many of the old pubs are gone. Population is 3124.
Winton - is the Dinosaur Capital of Australia with a population of 1414 (people that is not dinosaurs!!). The Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton is the only museum in the world dedicated to a song. Winton is also the birthplace of Qantas but Longreach won the rights to build the Qantas museum in their town.
Cloncurry - has a population of 2384 and is the hub of the outback, the birthplace of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the destination of the first Qantas flight. Founded in 1867 with the discovery of copper its core industries now include grazing, transport services, copper and gold mining.
Mt Isa - with a population of 24,000 (from more than 50 different nations) is Qld's largest provincial city west of the Great Dividing Range. The city is set against the backdrop of the Selwyn Ranges and is dominated by the sprawling Xstrata Mount Isa Mine (which is the nation's deepest underground mine and is still the largest single producer of copper, silver, lead and zinc in the world.
Camooweal -with a population of 300 is the last stop before the Northern Territory border. The district if honeycombed with rare sink holes and caves dating back to Cambrian Period, perhaps 500million years ago (This is what the guide book tells me)!
So ends the brief history of some of the larger towns we travelled through and or stopped at in Queensland.
Some of the population figures vary as they are recorded in different years so these are just approx. numbers.
