Mount Surprise, Queensland

Mount Surprise is a city in the north of the Australian state of Queensland. The village lies on the Gulf Developmental Road, 1722 km northwest of Brisbane and 285 kilometers south-west of Cairns. 2006 counted 162 residents in Mount Surprise people. In the village there are now (2008) two cafes, a gas station, a campground, a police station and a railway station.

History

Mount Surprise was founded by immigrants from England Ezra Firth, who settled with his family in 1864 in the field and a sheep operation. The Aborigines, who regarded the land as their own, the people working there and the building of the farm attacked repeatedly and ultimately burned down even the main building. Since the landscape was not very suitable for sheep farming anyway, the farm was close to financial collapse. However, when gold was discovered in the area in 1880, Firth was his sheep profitably sell to the gold rush and save the farm by turning them subsequently Ground surrounded on cattle. Even in the aftermath benefited the farm from trade with the gold diggers.

At about the same time that Mount Surprise was founded, was found in the vicinity of copper. Briefly, it was also reduced, but the costly transport of the ore in bullock carts made ​​the mine unprofitable. Only with increasing copper demand in the nineties of the 19th century copper mining was resumed.

Traffic

Since 1908, Mount Surprise is tied to the railroad. The Savannahlander runs Thursdays after Einasleigh and Forsayth and on Saturdays to Cairns (journey time approximately 10.5 hours).

Mount Surprise is a stop of the bus service between Cairns and Karumba.

At Mount Surprise is an airfield with a 1150 meter track.

Tourism

Not far from Mount Surprise are the Forty Mile Scrub National Park, Undara National Park, the hot springs at Tallaroo station. From the Gold Rush generates a cemetery in the village, on which there is a number of nameless graves.