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Cloncurry is a small town in northwest Queensland , Australia .
Location and infrastructure
It is located about 780 kilometers west of Townsville , 120 kilometers east of Mount Isa and about 1,700 kilometers northwest of the capital Brisbane . Cloncurry is located on the river of the same name , which flows about 300 kilometers north of the city into the Flinders River , which in turn flows north of Normanton into the Gulf of Carpentaria . It is the seat of the local administrative area of the same name (LGA) Cloncurry Shire Council .
Today Cloncurry is a small town with 2719 inhabitants (as of 2016) and is located in an area in which mainly cattle is raised. The city lies at the junction of several major highways. To the east, the Flinders Highway leads to Townsville on the east coast of the country. The Barkly Highway leads west over Mount Isa into the Northern Territory . The Burke Developmental Road leads to Normanton in the north and the Landsborough Highway to Longreach in the southeast . The latter two roads are also named together as the Matilda Highway after the famous Australian song Waltzing Matilda . Cloncurry is also connected to the network of Queensland Rail (QR), the railroad company in the state of Queensland, and has an airport outside the city.
history
The first Europeans in this area came with the Burke and Wills expedition in 1860/61. Robert O'Hara Burke named the river after his cousin Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry. A first settlement was created after copper deposits were discovered in the area in 1867 and the settlement served to supply the mine that was created. In 1884, the city of Cloncurry was founded, taking the name of the river.
For a long time, Cloncurry was known for having measured 53.1 ° C on January 16, 1889, the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia. Today, however, this is doubted due to the very imprecise and inadequate measurement methods at that time and it is assumed that the temperature was around 49 ° C.
In 1922, Qantas set up Australia's second regular airline between Charleville and Cloncurry . The then still very young company named itself after the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services region , QANTAS
On the western edge of the Cloncurry field, silver-lead ore was discovered in 1923 and from 1927 the current city of Mount Isa was built on this site. Up until that time, Cloncurry was the largest city in northwest Queensland.
On May 15, 1928, the first flight of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS) took off from Cloncurry Airport . At that time this was an experiment called Aerial Medical Service (AMS). The aircraft used was a machine on loan from QANTAS. Today an RFDS museum in the city commemorates this event.
Solar park
A larger solar power plant was planned near Cloncurry . It should generate around 30 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. This would have made Cloncurry the first city in Australia to be powered exclusively by solar power. The completion of the power plant was planned for the beginning of 2010. However, due to concerns about light pollution , the project was discontinued. Then a photovoltaic system was planned that would supply 500 households and go into operation at the end of 2012. The Queensland government withdrew funding for this project in May 2012 due to cost reasons.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics : Cloncurry ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
- ↑ Solar power scheme swapped. In: The Sydney Morning Herald. November 17, 2010, accessed June 30, 2012 .
- ^ Cloncurry Solar Farm. (pdf; 2.3 MB) Fact Sheet. Archived from the original on February 4, 2014 ; accessed on June 30, 2012 (English).
- ↑ solar farm scrapped. In: Brisbane Times. May 24, 2012, accessed June 30, 2012 .