Back cover tourist brochure, Darling Downs and Granite Belt, Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, c1935. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland
Front cover tourist brochure, Darling Downs and Granite Belt, published by Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, c1935. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Souvenirs of Queensland readily reflect the distinctive nature of the state and provide inexpensive mementoes.

Diagram showing Torres Strait

Torres Strait QLD
Australia
1 January 1886

Location

Torres Strait QLD
Australia
Sydney
John Sands
Diagram showing Torres Strait from The new atlas of Australia, 1886, p 237

There are over one hundred islands in the Torres Strait, whose area extends over 35,000 square kilometres, seventeen of these islands are inhabited.

Journal of an overland expedition

The elevation of Darling Downs—about 1800 to 2000 feet, according to the barometrical observations of Mr. Cunningham—renders the climate much cooler than its latitude would lead one to suppose; indeed, ice has frequently been found, during the calm clear nights of winter. During September and October, we observed at sunrise an almost perfect calm.

Location

Darling Downs QLD
Australia
1 January 1847
3-4
T&W Boone
London
Darling Downs QLD
Australia
From Ludwig Leichhardt, Journal of an overland expedition in Australia, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845, T&W Boone, London 1847, pp 3-4

Windabyne

So, needs-must, we had to hold on our course, away to the North, hugging the edge of the waterless country, up Gobang Creek, by Harvey's Range and Buckinbah, till we crossed the Macquarie, and struck along the Talbragar for the northern line, passing Liverpool Plains and skirting the New England Table-land, till we found ourselves on the margin of a tract of unsurpassed beauty and luxuriance—a black upland, swathed in flower-specked emerald, swelling away North in rolling seas of grass, spotted with misty islets; for many a mile without mark of hoof or other sign of the white man—and that w

Location

Darling Downs QLD
Australia
1 January 1895
208-09
Remington & Co
London
Darling Downs QLD
Australia
From George Rankin, Windabyne: a record of by-gone times in Australia, Remington & Co, London 1895, p 208-09

On our selection

DAD used to say that Shingle Hut was the finest selection on Darling Downs; but we never could see anything fine about it—except the weather in drought time, or Dad's old saddle mare. She was very fine. The house was built in a gully so that the bailiffs (I suppose) or the blacks—who were mostly dead—couldn't locate it. An old wire-fence, slanting all directions, staggered past the front door. At the rear, its foot almost in the back door, sloped a barren ridge, formerly a squatter's sheep-yard.

Location

Darling Downs QLD
Australia
1 January 1899
153-54
The Bulletin Newspaper
Sydney
Darling Downs QLD
Australia
From: Steele Rudd, On our selection, The Bulletin Newspaper, Sydney 1899, pp 153-54

The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn

“Have you heard tell yet,” said Sam, “of the new
country to the north, they call the Darling Downs?”

“I have heard of it, from Burnside the cattle dealer.
He describes it as a paradise of wealth.”

“He is right. When you get through the Cypress,
the plains are endless. It is undoubtedly the finest
piece of country found yet.”

Location

Darling Downs QLD
Australia
1 January 1859
210
Macmillan & Co
Cambridge and London
Darling Downs QLD
Australia
From: Henry Kingsley, The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn, Macmillan & Co, Cambridge and London, 1859, p 210

The women of the west

THEY left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best:
For love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West.

The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,
And the old-time joys and faces-they were gone for many a day;
In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains,
O'er the everlasting sameness of the never ending plains.

In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately-taken run,

Location

Western Queensland
Australia
1 January 1906
Angus & Robertson
Sydney
Western Queensland
Australia
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