Wallangarra, Queensland
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Wallangarra is a village on the border between Queensland and New South Wales in Australia. It is the most southerly town in Queensland, 258 km south west of Brisbane. Wallangarra is on the Queensland side of the border and Jennings is on the New South Wales side.
The name, originally Wallan-Garra, these are Aboriginal words meaning "plenty of water".
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Geography
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 5 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.
A railway heritage
The town was created to service a rail interchange between the differing rail gauges of the colonies of Queensland and New South Wales. Queensland still uses a narrow gauge of 3'6" (1067mm) and New South Wales a standard gauge of 4'8½" (1435 mm). The railway was the only rail link between Queensland and New South Wales until a standard gauge track came into service in the 1930s. From that time on, the Wallangarra station lessened in importance. All rail services stopped in 1997. In 2003, after major refurbishment, the station was reopened as a museum.
The railway line from Stanthorpe to Wallangarra has continued to be maintained. Steam trains taking tourists to Wallangarra occasionally operate.
Army Dump
During World War II, the Commonwealth Government created a general army store on the Queensland side of the border, and an ammunition dump on the New South Wales side. Dual gauge tracks were run to each store.
Access to the army stores was via Margetts St, one of the main roads in the town. The late Muriel Daphne Verdun Nicolson lived at 30 Margetts St from before WWII until her death in 2001. During WWII she reported that the flow of trucks and materiel went on all day and night.
The stores hold enough bridging material to rebuild the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Helicopters, F-111 parts and all sorts of odds and ends are held there. The ammunition dump, was in the 1970s, the largest ammunition dump in the Southern Hemisphere. As of 2004, it is the second largest in Australia. Children going to the Wallangarra State Primary School are still entertained by the massive scheduled explosions of stale ammunition.
Riverina Stock Feeds
Taking advantage of the rail junction Riverina Stock Feeds operated a packing plant opposite the Wallangarra railway station for many years until 1995. After that it moved to Warwick, a city 100 kilometres to the north. Warwick also has a major Woolworths warehouse. Interestingly the Chairman of Woolworths who located the ware house at Warwick grew up in Wallangarra.
Abbatoirs
Until 1982 The Anderson Meatpacking Company operated a large beef abbatoir at Wallangarra. After this closed the town's future looked dim. Ten years later, however, Australia's largest Mutton works opened on a new site just to the east of the town. The mutton produced is Halal, and most of it is exported to Arab countries.
Beehive Dam
Drive out along Margetts St, over the railway bridge, past the Rugby League grounds and out past the army. From there follow Old Paling Yard Road up the foot hills of Mt Norman. There you will find a water treatment plant and a road branch to the left going down to Beehive dam. Beehive dam is in the mountains, and fed by a spring. It is a beautiful place for a picnic.