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The 'Darling Downs' is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, Australia. The downs are to the west of South East Queensland and are one of eleven major regions of Queensland.
The region was named after the then Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling by Allan Cunningham, an early Australian explorer.^[1]
The landscape is dominated by rolling hills covered by pastures of many different vegetables, legumes and other crops including cotton, wheat, barley and sorghum. Between the farmlands there are long stretches of crisscrossing roads, bushy ridges, winding creeks and many herds of cattle. There are farms with beef and dairy cattle, pigs, sheep and lamb stock. Other notable features include irrigation systems, windmills serving as bore pumps to get water from the Great Artesian Basin, light planes crop-dusting, a rusty old woolshed and other scattered remnants from a bygone era of early exploration and settlement.

Contents

Geography

Pre-History

History

Development

Attractions

References

External links

Geography

The principal town is Toowoomba about 140 km west of Brisbane. Other towns situated on the Downs include Dalby, Warwick, Roma, Oakey, Mitchell, Pittsworth, Allora, Clifton, Cecil Plains, Drayton, Millmerran, Nobby, and Chinchilla in the west.

It is in the drainage basin of the Condamine River and Maranoa River and tributaries. On the northern boundaries of the Downs are the Bunya Mountains and the Bunya Mountains National Park. The region to the north is the South Burnett and the Maranoa lies to the west. A section of the western downs lies over coal deposits of the Surat Basin.
To the south lie the rocky formations of the Granite Belt, the Dumaresq and the MacIntyre rivers. Towards the coast, the mountains of the Scenic Rim form the headwaters of the westward flowing Condamine.

Pre-History

Originally the Darling Downs was covered with a wealth of indigenous grasses, this created an ideal vendure for stock eight months of the year. The Darling Downs Aborigines had an annual burning season at the time when the indigenous grasses were ripe and dry. The annual fires gave the local Aborigines of the Darling Downs a name "Goonneeburra" or "Fire Blacks" - "goonnee" being a name for fire and "burra" a generic word for the whole race. This is what the Downs tribes were known as to the coast blacks who inhabited the Moreton Bay area. Murri is wider spread genic word meaning the whole race but in the Kamabroi Dialect. The Downs tribes spoke one common dialect, called Waccah and so to all other surrounding tribes were known as the Wacca-burra. The Goonnee-burra were once situated where Toowoomba stands today.

History

Cunningham's Gap and the Darling Downs were first explored by Allan Cunningham and Charles Fraser in 1827. It is impossible to know who the first white was who looked out over the Darling Downs. Ludwig Leichhardt in 1844 saw the remains of a camp showing the signs of white men through ridge polls and steel axes. Patrick Leslie was the first person to settle on the Darling Downs in 1840, establishing a sheep property at Toolburra on the Condamine River. An early and still thriving homestead called Canning Downs was built in 1846. Other well-established residences on the southern downs include Jondaryan Homestead, Glengallan Homestead, Pringle Cottage and Roenthal Homestead.
In 1854 Charles Douglas Eastaughffe settled in the area. Spicer's Gap Road opened up the area in the 1850's. Later the expansion of Queensland Rail's train networks and Cobb and Co's stagecoach transport greatly assisted access to the region. Gold was found in the district around this time, however it was agricultural activity that provided for the boom times ahead.

The 1891 Australian shearers' strike started at Jondaryan.
The Darling Downs experienced a water crisis as the Condamine River dried up during the severe drought of 1994/1995.^[2]

Development

The New England Highway, Gore Highway and the Warrego Highway traverse the region. The Leslie Dam, Storm King Dam and the Glenlyon Dam are some of the major water storage facilities in the area.
The Jackson-Moonie-Brisbane oil pipeline and the Roma to Brisbane Pipeline, Australia's first natural gas pipeline both cross the region from west to east. There are a few coal mines and a number of power stations situated on the Downs, including the Milmerran Power Station, Oakey Power Station and the Kogan Creek Power Station.
Before European settlement many areas on the Darling Downs were fertile wilderness. For example around Ma Ma Creek, rich swampy wetlands provided a haven for many animal species not currently found on the downs. The Hopping mouse and Paradise Parrot have both become extinct since cattle farming begun.
The Dingo Fence starts at the town of Jimbour across the country to the Great Australian Bight.

Attractions

The region is popular with tourists because of its many natural and heritage attractions, including the Goomburra State Forest, Cunningham's Gap, Spicer's Gap and the Queen Mary Falls near Killarney in the Main Range National Park.
The town of Jandowae gained fame after offering vacant block of land for just $1. This was down to encourage resident to settle in the small town with less than 1000 people in 2001.
The region has also a zoo, Darling Downs Zoo near Clifton.

References

1. Naming the Highways - Cunningham Highway No. 17. p. 2. Accessed on 20 August 2007.
2. Collie, Gordon. ''Water crisis threatens towns. The Courier Mail'' p. 3 3 June, 1995

External links

★ Southern Darling Downs

★ Everything Toowoomba