Wallangarra, Queensland
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Wallangarra Queensland |
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Border "gates" at Wallangarra
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 Wallangarra
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| Coordinates | 28°54′0″S 151°56′0″E / 28.90000°S 151.93333°ECoordinates: 28°54′0″S 151°56′0″E / 28.90000°S 151.93333°E | ||||||||||||
| Population | 385 (2006 census) | ||||||||||||
| Established | 1885 | ||||||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 4383 | ||||||||||||
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| LGA(s) | Southern Downs Region | ||||||||||||
| County | Bentinck | ||||||||||||
| Parish | Tenterfield | ||||||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Southern Downs | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division(s) | Maranoa | ||||||||||||
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Wallangarra is a town and locality in the Southern Downs Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the third most southerly town in Queensland, 258 kilometres (160 mi) south west of Brisbane. Wallangarra is on the Queensland side of the border and Jennings is on the New South Wales side. At the 2006 census, Wallangarra had a population of 385.
In 1885, the Queensland Government announced that a town would be formed where the railway line between Queensland and New South Wales would meet. On 29 June 1885, 179 lots were offered for sale at £8 per acre (£20/ha).
Wallangarra lies in a valley between two ranges of mountains, which each are branches of the Great Dividing Range. It is 878 m above sea level. There is a gap between the more Westerly range at Wyberba, about five kilometres north of Wallangarra. This gap has made Wallangarra the major inland border crossing for the New England Highway and what was the first railway line between Brisbane and Sydney.
Wallangarra is one of the coldest towns in Queensland, due to its altitude and extreme southerly location in the state. Maximum temperatures rarely rise above 15 °C (59 °F) in winter or above 30 °C (86 °F) in summer. Wallangarra holds the record for the lowest maximum temperature in Queensland, 2.4 °C (36 °F) on 3 July 1984. Despite this, minimum temperatures are not as low due to local geographic variations, and towns well to the north such as Warwick and Oakey frequently record lower minimums.
The town was created to service a break-of-gauge between Queensland's narrow gauge Southern railway line of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) and New South Wales's standard gauge Main North railway line of 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) when the two systems came together in 1888. The railway station was named Wallan-garra (and remains so to this day officially) and the town took its name from the station but used the spelling Wallangarra (with most people using the same spelling for the railway station). The railway was the only rail link between Queensland and New South Wales until a standard gauge track was completed via Kyogle in 1930, with the completion of the bridge over the Clarence River at Grafton. From that time on, the Wallangarra railway station lessened in importance. All scheduled rail services stopped in 1997. In 2003, after major refurbishment, the station was reopened as a museum.
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Wikipedia