Manbulloo is a locality in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is located within the

Katherine Town Council The Katherine Town Council is a local government area in the Northern Territory, established on 3 March 1978. It is situated south of Darwin, and covers an area of . The Town of Katherine is an established residential township with a commer ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

, approximately south-west of the town

Katherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and Catherina, other variations are feminine Given name, names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria ...

on the

Victoria Highway The Victoria Highway links the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia with the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. The highway is a part of the Perth - Darwin National Highway link. It is signed as National Highway 1, and is par ...

. The locality was officially defined in April 2007, with the name being a corruption of a word meaning "pallid cuckoo" in the

Wardaman language Wardaman is an Australian Aboriginal language isolate. It is one of the northern non-Pama–Nyungan languages. Dagoman and Yangman (both extinct) were either dialects or closely related languages; as a family, these are called Yangmanic. Class ...

, and was first settled by Europeans as a pastoral station. Established in 1917 by the North Australia Meat Company to support the operations of Vestey's Meatworks, Manbulloo Station was located close to the recently extended

North Australia Railway The North Australia Railway was a narrow gauge railway in the Northern Territory of Australia which ran from the territory capital of Darwin, once known as Palmerston, to Birdum, just south of Larrimah. Initially its name was the ''Palmersto ...

, allowing direct rail access for livestock to be transported to Vestey's Meatworks in Darwin. The area was the site of

Manbulloo Airfield Manbulloo Airfield was a World War II airfield built at Manbulloo Station, near Katherine, Northern Territory. History Works on the airfield were initially undertaken by the 43rd Engineer Regiment (US Army) in April 1942. The Allied Works Coun ...

, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

base built in 1942 that hosted squadrons of the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

and

United States Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. During the war, a field abattoir and fresh food processing camp was also established by the

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

at Manbulloo. Today, Manbulloo is a sparsely populated rural locality containing commercial mango plantations and a

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentar ...

research station. Much of the land is still occupied by the Manbulloo Station, carrying 20,000 head of cattle. The station was sold to foreign investors in 2019, to be leased back to its current operators. The original riverside homestead now functions as tourist accommodation, with a surrounding

caravan park Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

References

{{Suburbs in Katherine Town Council , state=expanded Populated places in the Northern Territory