CLIFTON, QUEENSLAND

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A small Darling Downs rural community that services the local agricultural area. Once a large wheat growing area, the town now has a diverse range of agriculture including cattle, cereal crops, sunflowers, peanut and honey production and much more. The classic streetscape of Clifton and its building's facades have been used in a number of Australian movies including 'The Thorn Birds'.
Location: 185 km south-west of Brisbane; 57 km south of Toowoomba; 437 m above sea-level.
Origin of name: derived from the name of a pastoral run used by John Augustus Milbourne Marsh (1820-91) when the run was leased by him around 1844.
Brief history: like so many of the population centres of the Darling Downs it came into existence in the early 1840s when the government relented and allowed settlement to occur relatively close to the penal colony at Moreton Bay. It was opened up for closer settlement in 1869, a year before the railway arrived.
Natural features: Eagles Nest Lagoon; Hodgson Creek
Built features: Steele Rudd memorial; hamlet of Nobby. It was here that the famous short story writer Steele Rudd, the author of 'On Our Selection' and the creator of the famous 'Dad and Dave' characters, lived from 1909-1917.