CHINCHILLA, QUEENSLAND

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A small, but thriving community has progressed from a rural based economy reliant mainly on grain crops to the dynamic locality where coal and gas exploration and power station development projects go hand-in-hand with extensive feedlots, cotton and broad-acre farming. 25% of Australia's watermelon crop is grown here. The town holds a watermelon festival each year.
Location: 294 km west of Brisbane on the Warrego Highway; 83 km west of Dalby; 302 m above sea level.
Brief history: The area around Chinchilla was a great meeting place for the Barungam Aborigines before moving on to the Bunya Mountains feasts. Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt encountered the Barungam on his first expedition in 1844, and again in 1846 when his party camped at Charley’s Creek (named in honour of Leichhardt's aboriginal guide Charley Fisher). The first white settler, Matthew Goggs, was granted a 14-year lease over Chinchilla Station in 1848. A succession of good seasons in the 1850s and early 1860s led other landholders to take up properties adjoining the Chinchilla Station. By early 1877, a lawless, shanty town of tents and public houses had sprung up along Charley’s Creek, that was the beginnings of the town.
Places of Interest: Condamine River; petrified wood (very prevalent in the area including rare finds of fossilised Pentoxlin trees); Boonargo Cactoblastis Hall; Wongongera Slab Cottage; Chinchilla Folk Museum (steam sawmill)