Murgon
LOCATION
Murgon is located in the South Burnett region of Queensland, Australia. It is situated in the north-eastern part of the region, approximately 270 kilometers north-west of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland. Murgon is surrounded by picturesque countryside and is easily accessible by road.
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About Murgon
Murgon is a vibrant country town with a very active and friendly community, located in the north-eastern pocket of the South Burnett. The Murgon district has a lot to offer with amazing scenery and so much to see and do. An Aboriginal world meaning lily pond, Murgon derived its name from a pond located on Barambah Station near Moffatdale where the first European settlers settled. Originally starting with grazing sheep but eventually changed to cattle and dairying. An industry that is still paid homage to by The Queensland Dairy Museum (EST, 1988), just outside of town.
Like most of the South Burnett, logging was another booming industry, with selectors rooting out the heavy timber around Murgon in the early 1900s, but the town didn't start to develop until the larger properties were divided into smaller town allotments and the local population increased. In 1912 a sawmill was opened followed by the butter factory in 1913, and a grain shed built the following year, putting Murgon on the map as a prosperous little town. Murgon is still experiencing exciting developments with the recent completion of a state-of-the-art cultural centre - “55 Million Years Ago” the Murgon Country Creative Association initiative features a local art gallery and fossil museum, housing replicas of some of the incredibly significant archaeological finds from the region. Discovered in the 1930s, the Murgon Fossil Site is the only site in Australia that records a diverse vertebrate fauna dating from the early Tertiary Period, over 55 million years ago and approximately ten million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Murgon is also just a cooee away from Boat Mountain Conservation Park. A great location for avid bird watchers, the park has at least 46 species of birds including rufous whistlers, black-faced cuckoo-shrikes, double-barred finches, red-backed wrens, honeyeaters, fantails, doves and pigeons. You might also see black-striped wallabies and echidnas by day or pygmy-possums and sugar gliders at night. All this exploring has probably worked up quite the appetite, with the perfect picnic location down by the banks of Bjelke-Petersen Dam calling your name. You can walk off lunch at The Queensland Dairy and Heritage Museum just outside of Murgon. Step back in time and marvel at how the local timber and dairy industries have progressed since the early days of hand-churned butter. Butter making even can be arranged at the Dairy Museum for groups for a small charge, so make sure you stop at one of the many wonderful local bakeries for a fresh loaf of bread to taste the fruits of your labour on.
In a Nutshell: Although discovered in the 1930s, it was in the 1980s when palaeontologists Henk Godthelp and Mike Archer recognised the significance of the lake sediments at Murgon, with one of the most important finds the discovery of Australia's oldest placental land mammal. The ancient swampy environment was home to soft-shelled turtles, Australia's oldest known frogs and swamp crocodiles, Australia's oldest known bat, the world's earliest known songbirds and Australia's oldest known bandicoot. The fossil findings provided evidence of Australia's Gondwanan connection due to the discovery of a group of marsupials otherwise known only from South America
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