Burra is an Australian locality of rural smallholdings lying 20 kilometres to the south of
Queanbeyan, New South Wales
Queanbeyan ( ) is a city in the south-eastern region of New South Wales, Australia, located adjacent to the Australian Capital Territory in the Southern Tablelands region. Located on the Queanbeyan River, the city is the council seat of the Q ...
in the
Queanbeyan-Palerang Region. At the , Burra had a population of 790 people.
History
The Ngarigo people originally inhabited Burra as part of their wider country lands extending south to the
Australian Alps
The Australian Alps is a mountain range in southeast Australia. It comprises an interim Australian bioregion, . The first European camp was called 'The Creek' although it soon became known amongst the early settlers as "The Burra", possibly from a local aboriginal word (for instance, the Ngarigo word "berra", meaning
boomerang
A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning b ...
). The first grazing and clearing of the area began in the 1830-60s and farms in the Burra Valley were established at the Warm Corner, KT Park, Burra Station (the original 'creek' station), London Bridge and Lagoon. By the 1920s the local population had become large enough to support two competing cricket clubs, one at the Burra park, the other near Urila. Subdivision into smaller blocks began in the 1960s as Canberra's population expanded and has created the local regions such as those surrounding Candy Road, Badgery Road and Plummers Road. Today the majority of the area has been subdivided in this way.
Burra lies at the northern tip of the
Monaro tablelands, and shares with it some of the cooler climate of that region. Temperatures are on average two or three degrees Celsius below those in Canberra and Queanbeyan. Light falls of snow are not uncommon in the winter months.
Heritage listings
Burra includes a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
* London Bridge Road:
Googong Foreshores
Googong Foreshores is a heritage-listed historic precinct at London Bridge Road, Burra, New South Wales, Australia. It consists of the historic surroundings of the Googong Dam that predated the dam itself. It is also known as the Googong Fores ...
Geography
Part of the Burra valley has always been treeless. Elsewhere remnants of uncleared open woodland of
Snow Gum
''Eucalyptus pauciflora'', commonly known as snow gum, cabbage gum or white sally, is a species of tree or mallee that is native to eastern Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped to elliptical leaves, flower buds in clusters of between sev ...
,
Candlebark
''Eucalyptus rubida'', commonly known as candlebark, ribbon gum or white gum, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has smooth bark, sometimes with rough bark at the base, lance-shaped or curve ...
,
Yellow Box
''Eucalyptus melliodora'', commonly known as yellow box, honey box or yellow ironbark, is a species of medium-sized to occasionally tall tree that is endemic to south-eastern, continental Australia. It has rough, flaky or fibrous bark on part o ...
,
Apple Box
''Apple Box'' is a box set by XTC compiling '' Apple Venus Volume 1'' and '' Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)'' along with their respective demo albums '' Homespun'' and '' Homegrown''. It is the third box set of their career following '' Transis ...
and
Small Leaved Peppermint remain.
Black Sally and
Manna Gum
''Eucalyptus viminalis'', commonly known as the manna gum, white gum or ribbon gum, is a species of small to very tall tree that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has smooth bark, sometimes with rough bark near the base, lance-shaped to c ...
are found in the cooler gullies and frost hollows. The wooded hills to the east are rocky and dry, sporting primarily
Small Leafed Peppermint,
Brittle Gum and
Scribbly Gum. This area has never been heavily grazed and is in its original natural condition, in 2001 a part of it was protected by the creation of the
Burra Creek Nature Reserve Burra may refer to:
Places
*Burra, South Australia, a pastoral centre and historic tourist town in the mid-north of South Australia
**District Council of Burra (1872–1935)
**District Council of Burra Burra (1935–1997)
**Corporate Town of Burra ...
. The steeper slopes of the hills to the west of the Burra Valley, including Mount Campbell and
Gibraltar Peak (and known by some Burrans as the 'Purple Veil' range due to their shaded afternoon colour) are patchily covered by a forest type similar to the wet
sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaf, leaves, short Internode (botany), internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is paral ...
that occurs further to the west on the
Mount Clear Range and in
Namadgi National Park
Namadgi National Park is a protected area in the south-west of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), bordering Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales. It lies approximately southwest of Canberra, and occupies approximately 46 percent of ...
.
Most of the region is underlain by the Colinton Volcanics, composed of light grey
tuff
Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...
and
lava
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...
s deposited in shallow water by large explosive volcanic eruptions during the
Silurian
The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...
period, 425 million years ago. A fault runs parallel and to the east of the Burra Road, beyond which are the even older deep sea
Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start ...
sandy sediments of the Pittman formation, deposited from the mouth of a very large river which drained the nearby supercontinent
Gondwana
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...
. A few
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
lenses occur in younger rocks near to this
fault, one of which forms the locally famous 'London Bridge' natural arch over the Burra Creek. This limestone contains a few broken fossil
crinoid
Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which are ...
stems
brachiopod
Brachiopods (), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of trochozoan animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, w ...
s, and
tabulate corals.
In the 1920–30s there was some prospecting of iron, lead and silver along this fault but this was never commercially successful.
References
External links
The Bungendore Mirror – local pressRegional Rainfall Measurements – inc Burra CreekA Google Map of BurraBurra Creek Nature Reserve Draft Plan of ManagementBurra Community website
{{authority control
Towns in New South Wales
Volcanoes of New South Wales
Silurian volcanism
Southern Tablelands
Queanbeyan–Palerang Regional Council