Darling Downs
| Darling Downs | |
 Location map of the regions in Queensland |
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| structure | |
| State : |
 Australia
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| State : |
 Queensland
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| LGA : | Goondiwindi , Southern Downs , Toowoomba , Western Downs |
| Dates and numbers | |
| Area : | 273,147.6 km² |
| Residents : | 241,537 (2010) |
| Population density : | 0.9 inhabitants / km² |
Coordinates: 27 ° 33 ' S , 151 ° 59' E
The Darling Downs is an agricultural region on the western foothills of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland , Australia . The area is located west of the South East Queensland region and is one of the eleven regions of Queensland.
The area was named after Governor Ralph Darling by an early explorer of Australia Allan Cunningham .
geography
Various vegetables, beans, cotton, wheat, barley and sorghum are grown on the Darling Downs hill country . Long roads, bushes, meandering rivers and herds of cattle stretch between the farmland. In this landscape there are farms with herds of beef cattle and dairy cows, pigs, sheep and lambs. Other typical landscapes are shaped by irrigation systems, windmills that drive pumps and pump water from the Great Artesian Basin , light aircraft spraying fields, old shearers huts and other isolated relics from the bygone era of the early period of European discovery and settlement.
The largest city and the commercial center of Darling Downs is Toowoomba , approximately 132 km west of Brisbane .
Other towns in the Downs are Dalby , Warwick , Roma , Oakey , Mitchell , Pittsworth , Allora , Clifton , Cecil Plains , Drayton , Millmerran , Nobby and Chinchilla to the west.
The Darling Downs are the drainage system of the Condamine River and Maranoa River, as well as their tributaries. On the northern limit of the Downs are the Bunya Mountains and the Bunya Mountains National Park . The region that is to the north is South Burnett and Maranoa to the west. An area of the Western Downs is in the Surat Basin , an area of Australian coal mining . Further towards the coast rise the mountains of the Scenic Rim , where the springs of the westward flowing Condamine River are located.
Southern Downs
Parts of the Darling Downs, in which the towns of Allora, Clifton, Warwick, Killarney and the rocky area to the south, the Granite Belt are located, are known as Southern Downs . The Southern Downs are classified as a region as Interim Biogeographic Regionalization for Australia . The term is also used to define political boundaries and to promote tourism. The Dumaresq River and the Macintyre River are in the region.
history
Originally, the Darling Downs were overgrown with native grasses , which are an ideal source of food for cattle herds for eight months. The Aborigines of the Darling Downs burned the grass once a year from when it carried seeds and dry. The annual burning gave the local Aborigines the name Goonneeburra or Fire Blacks - goonnee is the name for fire and burra is an original name of the local Aboriginal tribes . The indigenous tribes, also known as the Coast Blacks , lived in the Moreton Bay area . Murri is a word that denotes the tribes of the Kamabroi. The Downs tribes spoke a common dialect called Waccah and because of this they were known to all of the surrounding tribes as the Wacca-burra . The Goonnee-burra used to live where Warwick is today.
Cunninghams Gap and the Darling Downs were first discovered by Allan Cunningham and Charles Frazer in 1827. Cunningham came to the area for another survey in 1828 to find a way to the coast, which was not possible when Australia was still a penal colony . Cunningham climbed the top of Mount Dumaresq, near present-day Maryvale , and then wrote in his diary that the lush grassy area is ideal for settlement. For the original Darling Downs, Allan Cunningham chose the name of Governor Darling. The area at that time stretched 100 miles as far as the eye could see from Mount Dumaresq. Ludwig Leichhardt saw the remains of the camp in 1844 with traces of white men on the ridge and steel axes.
The news about the fertile landscape spread quickly. Immigration developed and the government of the remote colony of New South Wales found no way to contain it. Patrick Leslie was the first European to settle on Darling Downs in 1840 and to receive property for sheep farming at Canning Downs on the Condamine River in 1846 . Glengallan Homestead, Talgai Homestead, Pringle Cottage and Rosenthal Homestead were other fortified residences that arose on the southern Downs. In 1854 Charles Douglas Eastaughffe settled in this area. The Spicers Gap Road opened the area in the 1850s for further colonization. Queensland Rail and the transport company Cobb & Co later made it possible to further develop the region. Gold was found there at the time, but agricultural activity started the boom in the area.
The sheep shearers 'strike (1891) , which was important for the political workers' movement, began in the Jondaryan sheep breeding station.
A serious drought occurred in the Darling Downs in 1994/1995 when the Condamine River dried up.
Infrastructure
The New England Highway , Gore Highway and Warrego Highway traverse the region. Water is dammed in Leslie Dam , Storm King Dam and Glenlyon Dam . The Lake Broadwater is the only natural lake.
The Queensland gas and oil pipeline and the Roma to Brisbane pipeline, Australia's first natural gas pipeline, cross the region from west to east. There are several coal mines and several coal-fired power plants in the Downs: the Millmerran Power Plant , Oakey Power Plant , Darling Downs Power Plant and Kogan Creek Power Plant .
Before the European settlement, many areas in the Darling Downs were sprawling wilderness, for example around Ma Ma Creek . Abundant marshy wetlands were home to many species of animals that no longer live in the Darling Downs today. The Darling Downs jumping mouse and the paradise parrot became extinct after European livestock farming began.
The Dingo Fence begins at Jimbour and crosses the country to the Great Australian Bight .
tourism
The region is popular with tourists because it contains numerous natural and historical attractions, including the Goomburra State Forest, Cunninghams Gap , Spicers Gap, and Queen Mary Falls near Killarney in Main Range National Park .
The city of Jandowae became famous for offering land for AUD 1. She wanted to attract residents to her city, which in 2001 had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
The Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba displays horse-drawn vehicles and material from the story of the Darling Downs. There is also a small zoo, the Darling Downs Zoo at Clifton.
The region has significant sites of megafauna fossils that have not yet been archaeologically recorded. These abundant finds gave weight to the belief that humans were not the cause of the megafauna extinction.
fiction
Steele Rudd (Arthur Davis) wrote a comic series about country life. The first book On Our Selection (1899) describes the life of father, mother and Dave Rudd at the Snake Gully. The Rudds owned four (or six) acres on a shaft rail in the Darling Downs. They have also appeared in film and radio series.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics: Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2009-10 . March 31, 2011. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
- ↑ Naming the Highways ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Cunningham Highway No. 17. S. 2. Retrieved August 20, 2007.
- ↑ a b Darling Downs . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved November 6, 2010.
- ^ Raymond Evans: A History of Queensland . Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Victoria 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-87692-6 , pp. 51-52.
- ↑ Collie, Gordon. Water crisis threatens towns. The Courier Mail. P. 3, dated June 3, 1995.
- ↑ Australia's fossil past . Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
- ↑ Study clears humans over megafauna extinction . In: ABC News . May 30, 2005. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
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