MUNDUBBERA, QUEENSLAND

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A small, relatively modern country town which describes itself as the Citrus Capital of Queensland and has built the Big Mandarin to support the claim. The area boasts the largest single citrus orchard in the Southern Hemisphere.
Location: 390 km north-west of Brisbane; 124 m above sea-level.
Origin of name: derived from pastoral run name, first used 1848, by HP Bouverie, pastoralist, using Aboriginal word from the Kabi language, indicating either sharp ridges or climbing steps cut in a tree.
Brief history: The area was first settled by Europeans in 1848 when the sheep grazing property of Mundubbera Station was established. Cattle largely replaced sheep as the major economic focus in the 1880s as the local speargrass had an adverse effect on the fleece. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the land was resumed by the government and opened up for closer settlement, mainly for citrus fruit orcharding which had commenced in 1892.
Natural features: Boyne River; Auburn River National Park; Burnett River
Built features: Golden Mile Orchard and the Big Mandarin; locality of Binjour
Heritage features: Folk Museum, housed in the Cattle Creek Valley School House (1916); 'Boondooma' homestead