Kingaroy
Kingaroy is an agricultural town in rural Queensland, Australia. It is located about 220 kilometers northwest of the capital, Brisbane, 150 km north of Toowoomba and 140 kilometers west of Gympie. Kingaroy has about 7,600 inhabitants and is the seat of the South Burnett Regional Council.
The area around Kingaroy was first settled in 1843. The first settlement was called Taabinga and was initially only a farm for sheep farming. Today's Kingaroy was founded in 1904 after a railway line from Theebine was built in the area. The word comes from the Kingaroy Aboriginal language, meaning Red Ant.
Kingaroy is located at the intersection of Bunya Highway, which runs south-west of Dalby ago, and the D' Aguilar Highway, which leads from the southeast of Caboolture after Kingaroy.
In Australia, Kingaroy is known primarily as The Peanut Capital of Australia ( peanut capital of Australia ). In Kingaroy, there are the biggest factory for processing of peanuts in Australia. Even from afar, and to a certain extent landmarks of the city are three huge silos in which the peanuts are stored. Since the number and duration of droughts and drought grew more and more in the 1990s was the peanut production but back more and more. Many farmers have since switched to the cultivation of wine and there are now numerous wineries in the area and a large bottling plant in Kingaroy.
Kingaroy has been known as the home town of the former Prime Minister of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke -Petersen, who from 1968 to 1987 was in office.
Today, there are several festivals each year in Kingaroy, of which the Wine and Food in The Park Festival and the Kingaroy Peanut Festival are among the best known.
Last earned in October 2007 Kingaroy sad notoriety when it was the first place in Australia was due to the prolonged drought that was allocated with restrictions on Level 7 for water use. In Queensland this is the highest level of restrictions, which prohibits the use of water generally outside of houses for watering the garden or washing the car.