The Darling Downs is a
farm
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...
ing region on the western slopes of the
Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...
in southern
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. The Downs are to the west of
South East Queensland and are one of the major
regions of Queensland. The name was generally applied to an area approximating to that of the
Condamine River catchment upstream of
Condamine township but is now applied to a wider region comprising the
Southern Downs,
Western Downs,
Toowoomba and
Goondiwindi local authority areas. The name Darling Downs was given in 1827 by
Allan Cunningham, the first European explorer to reach the area and recognises the then
Governor of New South Wales
The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the A ...
,
Ralph Darling
General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. He is popularly described as a tyrant, accused of torturing prisoners and banning theatrical entertain ...
.
The region has developed a strong and diverse agricultural industry largely due to the extensive areas of
vertosol
A vertisol, or vertosol, is a soil type in which there is a high content of expansive clay minerals, many of them known as montmorillonite, that form deep cracks in drier seasons or years. In a phenomenon known as argillipedoturbation, alternate ...
s (cracking clay soils), particularly black vertosols, of moderate to high fertility and
available water capacity Available water capacity is the amount of water that can be stored in a soil profile and be available for growing crops. It is also known as available water content (AWC), profile available water (PAW) or total available water (TAW).
The concept, p ...
. Manufacturing and mining, particularly coal mining are also important, and coal seam gas extraction experienced significant growth in the decade up to 2016.
The
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
is dominated by rolling hills covered by pastures of many different species,
vegetable
Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the edible flower, flowers, ...
s,
legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock for ...
s such as soy beans and chick peas, and other crops including
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
,
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
,
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...
and
sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many other ...
. Between the farmlands there are long stretches of crisscrossing roads,
bushy ridges, winding creeks and herds of cattle. There are farms with
beef
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus'').
In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...
and
dairy cattle,
pigs,
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...
and
lamb stock. Other typical sights include
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...
systems, windmills serving as
water well
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. T ...
pumps to get water from the
Great Artesian Basin
The Great Artesian Basin (GAB), located in Australia, is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over , with measured water temperatures ranging from . The basin provides the only source of fresh water through much of ...
, light planes
crop
A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...
-dusting, rusty old
woolsheds and other scattered remnants from a bygone era of early exploration and settlement.
Geography
The largest city and commercial centre of the Darling Downs is
Toowoomba[
] about west of
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
. Other towns situated on what is now called The Downs include
Dalby,
Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...
,
Stanthorpe,
Wallangarra,
Goondiwindi,
Oakey
Oakey is a rural town and locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. The Museum of Army Aviation is located at Oakey Airport.
Geography
The town is situated on the eastern side of the Darling Downs and the Toowoomba Region ...
,
Miles
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...
,
Pittsworth,
Allora,
Clifton
Clifton may refer to:
People
* Clifton (surname)
* Clifton (given name)
Places
Australia
*Clifton, Queensland, a town
** Shire of Clifton
*Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong
* Clifton, Western Australia
Canada
* Clifton, Nova Sc ...
,
Cecil Plains
Cecil Plains is a rural town and locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Cecil Plains had a population of 429 people.
Geography
Cecil Plains is in the Darling Downs, west of the state capital, Bri ...
,
Drayton,
Millmerran
Millmerran , known as Domville between 1 June 1889 and 16 November 1894, is a town and a locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Millmerran had a population of 1,563 people.
Geography
The town is on th ...
,
Nobby, and
Chinchilla
Chinchillas are either of two species (''Chinchilla chinchilla'' and ''Chinchilla lanigera'') of crepuscular rodents of the parvorder Caviomorpha. They are slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, and are native to the Andes mounta ...
. The
New England Highway,
Gore Highway
The Gore Highway is a highway running between Toowoomba and Goondiwindi in Queensland, Australia. Together with Goulburn Valley Highway and Newell Highway, it is a part of the National Highway's Melbourne-Brisbane link. It is signed as Nationa ...
and the
Warrego Highway traverse the region. The
Toowoomba Second Range Crossing
The Toowoomba Bypass, known as Toowoomba Second Range Crossing during planning and construction, is a grade separated, dual carriageway bypass and partial ring road constructed to the north and west of Toowoomba, Queensland. Construction comm ...
has been constructed so that heavy traffic can avoid passing through Toowoomba.
Coolmunda Dam,
Leslie Dam,
Cooby Dam
The Cooby Dam is a rockfill embankment dam with an ungated spillway across the Cooby Creek, a tributary of Condamine River, at Groomsville in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia. The main purpose of the dam is for potable water s ...
,
Perseverance Dam
Perseverance Creek Dam (also known as Perseverance Dam) is a reservoir in Crows Nest, Queensland, Crows Nest, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It creates Lake Perseverance which is the second largest (in terms of storage capacity) and the ...
,
Cressbrook Dam
Cressbrook Dam is one of the three water storages used to supply Toowoomba and the surrounding region in Queensland, Australia. The dam is north-east of Toowoomba in the locality of Biarra in the Somerset Region. It was constructed in 1983 for ...
,
Storm King Dam and the
Glenlyon Dam
Glenlyon Dam, also known as Pike Creek Reservoir, is an earth and rockfill dam in Queensland near the border with New South Wales, roughly between Stanthorpe and Texas to the west. In 1976, the dam wall was built on Pike Creek, a tributary of th ...
are some of the major water storage facilities in the area. West of Toowoomba is the
Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport.
The Darling Down is situated in the drainage basins of the
Condamine River and
Maranoa River and tributaries. The Condamine River flood plain is noted for its good soils formed by
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...
ic
alluvium
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...
.
On the northern boundaries of the Downs are the
Bunya Mountains and the
Bunya Mountains National Park
Bunya Mountains is a national park in the South Burnett Region, Queensland, Australia.
Geography
The park includes much of the mountain range called the Bunya Mountains. The park are encompasses the most westerly area of subtropical rainfore ...
. The region to the north is the
South Burnett
The South Burnett is a peanut growing and wine-producing area on the Great Dividing Range, north of the Darling Downs, in Queensland. It is with the basin of the Burnett River. The area is within two local government areas, South Burnett Regio ...
and the
Maranoa lies to the west. A section of the western downs lies over coal deposits of the
Surat Basin. Towards the coast, the mountains of the
Scenic Rim
The Scenic Rim is a group of forested mountain ranges of the Great Dividing Range, located south of Brisbane agglomeration, straddling the border between south-eastern Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. In 2021, the ...
form the headwaters of the westward flowing Condamine.
Climate
The majority of the Darling Downs has a
humid subtropical climate
A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
although some areas experience a
semi-arid
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi- ...
or
subtropical highland climate. Summer maximum temperatures range from , while winter maximums range from . The annual rainfall ranges from in the far west of the region, to in the east. In the south-east of the Darling Downs winter temperatures can drop below with heavy
frost
Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor in an above-freezing atmosphere coming in contact with a solid surface whose temperature is below freezing, and resulting in a phase change from water vapor (a g ...
and occasional
snow
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.
It consists of frozen crystalline water throughou ...
, while in the north-west summer temperatures can surpass . Severe
thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...
s and damaging
flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
s are a threat at times, as are
bushfires in dry years.
Southern Downs
Part of the Darling Downs, which includes the towns of Allora, Clifton, Warwick, Killarney and the rocky district in the south known as the
Granite Belt
The Granite Belt is an area of the Great Dividing Range in the Darling Downs region of Queensland and the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. The Granite Belt is centred on the town of Stanthorpe. The cool, high country of the gra ...
, is known as the Southern Downs. The phrase is also used to define political boundaries and in the promotion of tourism in the area. The
Dumaresq and the
MacIntyre MacIntyre or McIntyre is a Scottish surname, relating to Clan MacIntyre. Its meaning is "Son of the Carpenter or Wright". The corresponding English name is Wright.
People surnamed ''MacIntyre'', ''Macintyre''
* Alasdair MacIntyre, Scottish phi ...
are found in this part of the region.
(This is different to the IBRA subregion also known as The Southern Downs
Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia
The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) is a biogeographic regionalisation of Australia developed by the Australian government's Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities. It was deve ...
, which is further west, around the towns of Roma, Mitchell and Injune).
History
Baranggum (also known as Barrunggam, Barunggam Parrungoom, Murrumgama) is an
Australian Aboriginal language
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
spoken by the
Baranggum people. The Baranggum language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the
Western Downs Regional Council
Western Downs Region is a local government area in Queensland, Australia. The Western Downs Regional Council manages an area of , which is slightly smaller than Switzerland, although with a population of 34,467 in June 2018, it is over 22 ...
, particularly
Dalby,
Tara,
Jandowae
Jandowae is a rural town and locality in the Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Jandowae had a population of 1,047 people.
Geography
The town is west of the Brisbane. the capital of the state of Queensland ...
and west towards
Chinchilla
Chinchillas are either of two species (''Chinchilla chinchilla'' and ''Chinchilla lanigera'') of crepuscular rodents of the parvorder Caviomorpha. They are slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, and are native to the Andes mounta ...
.
Originally, the Darling Downs was covered with a wealth of indigenous
grasses
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns ...
which created an ideal verdure 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 the 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 coastal Aborigines who inhabited the
Moreton Bay area.
Murri is a wider-spread generic 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 Warwick stands today. Goonnee meant "the ones who hunt with fire".
Allan Cunningham set out to explore the area to the west of
Moreton Bay in 1827, crossing to the west of the
Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...
from the
Hunter Region
The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and s ...
and travelling north. In June 1827, Cunningham climbed to the top of Mount Dumaresque
(near what is now Clintonvale close to
Maryvale) and after wrote in his diary that this lush area was ideal for settlement. Exploring around Mount Dumaresque, Cunningham found a pass, now known as
Cunninghams Gap
Cunninghams Gap is a pass over the Great Dividing Range between the Darling Downs and the Fassifern Valley in Queensland, Australia. The Gap is the major route over the Main Range along the Great Dividing Range, between Warwick and Brisbane ...
. Cunningham returned to Moreton Bay in 1828 and with
Charles Fraser charted the route through the pass to the Darling Downs.
Ludwig Leichhardt
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, (23 October 1813 – c. 1848) was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.Ken Eastwood,'Cold case: Leichhardt's dis ...
in 1844 saw the remains of a camp showing the signs of white men through ridge poles and steel axes.
News of the lush pastures quickly spread resulting in a land grab that authorities in the distant New South Wales colony found difficult to stop.
Patrick Leslie was the first person to settle on the Darling Downs in 1840, establishing a
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...
property at
Canning Downs on the
Condamine River in 1846. Other well-established residences on the southern downs include Glengallan Homestead, Talgai Homestead, Pringle Cottage and Rosenthal Homestead. One of the first stations to be established was Jimbour House. It was also the point where Leichhardt launched his expedition to the Northern Territory in 1844.
By 1844 there 26 properties including a number of sheep stations with more than 150,000 head.
Local aboriginals and European
squatters co-settled the area from the late 1840s onwards.
Darling Downs then became known as the 'jewel in the diadem of squatterdom' with an elite 'pure merino' class living in comfortable houses.
In 1854,
Charles Douglas Eastaughffe
Charles Douglas Eastaughffe was an early Australian settler, later becoming a police trooper and Chief Constable of Dalby, Queensland.
Biography
Born in Inverness, Scotland c.1804, it is unclear when he first arrived in Australia but it seems to ...
settled in the area.
Spicers Gap
Spicers Gap is a mountain pass that is located west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, and was the original route over the Great Dividing Range in the area around Brisbane. Today it is included in Main Range National Park and is a popular des ...
Road opened up the area in the 1850s. Later the expansion of
Queensland Rail's train networks and
Cobb and Co
Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th ...
's
stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...
transport greatly assisted access to the region.
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
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
The 1891 shearers' strike is one of Australia's earliest and most important industrial disputes.
The dispute was primarily between unionised and non-unionised wool workers. It resulted in the formation of large camps of striking workers, and min ...
started at
Jondaryan. The Darling Downs experienced a
water crisis as the Condamine River dried up during the severe drought of 1994/1995.
[Collie, Gordon. ''Water crisis threatens towns. The Courier Mail'' p. 3. 3 June 1995.]
During the early 20th century dairy was a significant industry for Queensland. The 1930s saw the peaking of the dairy industry on the Downs with 6,500 farms and over 200,000 milking cows.
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association expanded, constructed or purchased at least 10 butter and cheese factories across the Darling Downs.
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory is a heritage-listed factory at 57 Brook Street, North Toowoomba, Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Dairy Farmers Factory. It was added to the Qu ...
in Toowoomba closed in 2006.
In 2010, the population of the Darling Downs was estimated to be 241,537 people.
Industry
The Queensland Gas Pipeline oil pipeline and the Roma to Brisbane Pipeline, Australia's first natural gas pipeline both cross the region from west to east. There are two
coal mine
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
s,
New Acland Mine and
Cameby Downs coal mine
The Cameby Downs Coal Mine is a coal mine located 16 km south-east of Miles on the Darling Downs in Queensland. The mine has coal reserves amounting to 688 million tonnes of thermal coal, one of the largest coal reserves in Asia and the ...
and a number of power stations situated on the Downs, including the
Millmerran Power Station
The Millmerran Power Station is a coal-fired power station south of Millmerran in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia. The power station was commissioned in 2002 and cost $1.5 billion to build. The power station is owned and oper ...
,
Oakey Power Station,
Darling Downs Power Station and the
Kogan Creek Power Station
The Kogan Creek Power Station is a 750 megawatt coal fired power station owned by CS Energy on the Darling Downs in Queensland. The $1.2 billion plant is situated at Brigalow, in the Surat Basin between Dalby and Chinchilla.
The power stat ...
.
Tarong Power station
The Tarong Power Station is a coal fired power station located on a site in Tarong in the South Burnett Region near the town of Nanango, in Queensland, Australia. The station has a maximum generating capacity of 1,400 megawatts, generated f ...
is building the state's largest grid battery storage project. The
Dingo Fence starts at the town of
Jimbour across the country to the
Great Australian Bight. Mining exploration leases cover more than 90% of the Darling Downs.
After agriculture and mining, manufacturing is the next most important sector. Manufacturing focuses on food and beverages but also the production of machinery, equipment and metal products.
Agriculture
The region produces around one quarter of the state's agricultural output.
Water for irrigation is mostly sourced from
groundwater
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
from alluvial
aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characte ...
s. Water is also extracted from streams,
off-stream reservoir
{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009
An off-stream reservoir is a reservoir that is not located on a streambed, and is supplied by a pipeline, aqueduct or an adjacent stream. San Luis Reservoir is the largest off-stream reservoir in the United S ...
s and on-farm dams.
The lower temperatures of the milder summers in the Stanthorpe and Killarney regions allows farmers to grow lettuce, celery, brassicas and potato.
The Darling Downs contains the largest deposit of rich black agricultural soils in Australia.
A commonly grown grass species
Panicum coloratum, also known as Bambatsi, is well-suited for pastures used for grazing because it is suitable to the heavy-cracking clay soils found in the area.
The eastern Downs feature a wide range of soil types.
Brothers
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Ziesemer and
Theodor Martin Peter Ziesemer were significant pioneers of large scale wheat farming on the Darling Downs.
Meat
The area is home to Australia's largest concentration of feedlots.
In 2010, two abattoirs at Pittsworth and Killarney owned by Dudley Leitch were closed.
Several other plants in the area were also closed leaving the remaining meat processor at
Yangan in high demand. By late 2012, the industry was recovering with smaller processing facilities at Crows Nest and Inglewood opening.
In 2014, the Oakey Abattoir which is the fourth largest meat processing plant in Australia,
launched an environmental initiative to extract
green energy biogas from its
waste water streams.
It was the first ever use of a covered lagoon to treat effluent.
Wine
In the
Southern Downs region surrounding
Stanthorpe in an area called the
Granite Belt
The Granite Belt is an area of the Great Dividing Range in the Darling Downs region of Queensland and the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. The Granite Belt is centred on the town of Stanthorpe. The cool, high country of the gra ...
there are now over sixty cellar doors, wineries, and vineyards. The industry first began as a table grape growing region that by the mid-1960s was starting to plant wine grape cultivars. This region has a
subtropical highland climate atypical to the rest of Queensland due to its elevation. Altitudes from 680 m to over 1200 m above sea level make it ideally suited to premium wine production.
Attractions
The region is popular with tourists because of its many natural and heritage attractions, including the Goomburra State Forest,
Cunninghams Gap
Cunninghams Gap is a pass over the Great Dividing Range between the Darling Downs and the Fassifern Valley in Queensland, Australia. The Gap is the major route over the Main Range along the Great Dividing Range, between Warwick and Brisbane ...
,
Spicers Gap
Spicers Gap is a mountain pass that is located west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, and was the original route over the Great Dividing Range in the area around Brisbane. Today it is included in Main Range National Park and is a popular des ...
and the
Queen Mary Falls
The Queen Mary Falls is a plunge waterfall on Spring Creek, in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia.
Location and features
The falls are situated in the Main Range National Park and descend from the McPherson Range near the Q ...
near
Killarney in the
Main Range National Park
The Main Range is a mountain range and national park in Queensland, Australia, located predominantly in Tregony, Southern Downs Region, southwest of Brisbane. It is part of the World Heritage Site Gondwana Rainforests of Australia (formerl ...
.
Lake Broadwater is the only natural lake on the tablelands.
The town of
Jandowae
Jandowae is a rural town and locality in the Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Jandowae had a population of 1,047 people.
Geography
The town is west of the Brisbane. the capital of the state of Queensland ...
gained fame after offering vacant blocks of land for just $1. This was done to encourage residents to settle in the small town which had less than 1,000 people in 2001.
The
Cobb & Co Museum has displays of horse-drawn vehicles and material on the history of the Darling Downs. The
Jondaryan Woolshed
Jondaryan Woolshed is a heritage-listed shearing shed at Evanslea Road, Jondaryan, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1859-60 to replace an earlier, smaller woolshed on the former Jondaryan pastoral station, which was at one stage the larg ...
is a heritage-listed shearing shed situated at a site where a tourist operator has collected numerous related structures. The region has also a small zoo,
Darling Downs Zoo
Darling Downs Zoo is a zoo situated in Pilton, Queensland, Australia. The zoo is divided into four separate geographical areas featuring animals mostly from Africa, South America, South-East Asia and Australia.
History
The zoo was closed from ...
near Clifton.
The region has uncovered important
megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common thresho ...
fossil finds. The rich discoveries have lent weight to the theory that humans were not a factor in the extinction of the ancient megafauna species. Many of the fossils in the region date to the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
and include species such as
Diprotodon optatum, the largest-ever
marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in ...
. In 2021, examination of a partial skull revealed a site on the Darling Downs was the location for a new species of
Tomistominae crocodile, representing the largest extinct crocodile species ever discovered in Australia.
[ ]
The
Darling Downs Golf Association has 21 affiliated golf clubs on the Darling Downs.
Environment
Before European settlement many areas on the Darling Downs were fertile
wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
. For example, around Ma Ma Creek, rich
swamp
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...
y wetlands provided a haven for many animal species not currently found on the downs. The
Darling Downs hopping mouse
The Darling Downs hopping mouse (''Notomys mordax'') is an extinct species of mammal in the family Muridae. It is known from a single skull found at Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. Introduced predators such as foxes and domestic cats may ...
and
paradise parrot have both become extinct since cattle farming began.
The
New Acland Mine expansion, north of Oakey, has been delayed by the largest environmental
public interest
The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society.
Overview
Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefor ...
court cases in Australian history.
Awards
In 2009 as part of the
Q150
Q150 was the sesquicentenary (150th anniversary) of the Separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859. Separation established the Colony of Queensland which became the State of Queensland in 1901 as part of the Federation of Australia. Q ...
celebrations, the Darling Downs was announced as one of the
Q150 Icons
The Queensland's Q150 Icons list of cultural icons was compiled as part of Q150 celebrations in 2009 by the Government of Queensland, Australia. It represented the people, places and events that were significant to Queensland's first 150 years ...
of Queensland for its role as a "location".
In fiction
Steele Rudd (Arthur Davis) wrote a series of comic novels on rural life, starting with ''
On Our Selection'' (1899), about Dad, Mother and Dave Rudd of Snake Gully. The Rudds had four (or six) acres adjoining a sheep run in the Darling Downs. The stories were made into films and a radio series.
See also
*
Darling Downs Correctional Centre
Darling Downs Correctional Centre was an Australian prison facility in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.
See also
* List of Australian prisons
This is a list of operational and former Australian prisons for adult males and females and yo ...
References
External links
Southern Darling DownsToowoomba.org – Toowoomba's Homepage
{{Queensland
Murray-Darling basin
Great Dividing Range
Agriculture in Queensland
Pre-Separation Queensland
Squatting in Australia