Palmyra is a rural

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

in the

Mackay Region The Mackay Region is a local government area located in North Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, it was preceded by three previous local government areas with modern histories extending back as far as 1869. It has an estimat ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. In the , Palmyra had a population of 250 people.

Geography

The locality is bounded from north to east by Bakers Creek, which it is bounded from south to east by Maclennan Creek, which becomes a tributary of the Bakers Creek at the easternmost point of the locality, from where Bakers Creek flows eastwards through the locality of Bakers Creek to the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

. The Walkerston Bypass enters the locality from the west ( Greenmount) and exits to the north-west ( Te Kowai). The land use is predominantly growing

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

on the lower flatter land with

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

on native vegetation on the higher elevations, mostly in the south-west of the locality. There is a network of

cane tramways The rail network in Queensland, Australia, was the first in the world to adopt narrow gauge for a main line. In 2013, it claimed to be the second largest narrow gauge network in the world. The network consists of the following lines: *the N ...

to transport the harvested sugarcane to the local sugar mills.

History

The Palmyra sugar mill operated from 1883 to 1905. It was north of Silingardis Road (appox ). Palmyra Dragway opened in 1968. The dragway was badly damaged by

Cyclone Debbie Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie in 2017 was the strongest tropical cyclone to strike Queensland since Cyclone Marcia, Marcia in 2014–15 Australian region cyclone season, 2015, and was the costliest tropical cyclone in Australia since Cyclone ...

in 2017. In 2023, the dragway was approved by the International Hot Rod Assoc Australia (IHRA). Mac's Speedway began hosting motorsport events in the 1980s. It takes its name from the McNicholl family and the track has hosted important

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

events, including the final of the Queensland Solo Championship, which was a qualifying round of the

Speedway World Championship The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official championsh ...

in 1991. In April 2024, the site at 13 Grants Road () was put up for sale.

Demographics

In the , Palmyra had a population of 264 people. In the , Palmyra had a population of 250 people.

Education

There are no schools in Palmyra. The nearest government primary schools are Walkerston State School in neighbouring Walkerston to the north-west, Dundula State School in Bakers Creek to the east, and Homebush State School in neighbouring

Homebush Homebush is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 12 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Strathfield. The name o ...

to the south. The nearest government secondary school is

Mackay State High School Mackay State High School is a government secondary school at 123 Milton Street, South Mackay, Mackay, Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. The school offers education to students from grades 7 to 12 and provides a range of academic programs ...

in South Mackay to the north-east. There are also non-government schools in Walkerston and in Mackay's suburbs.

Amenities

The locality has a number of motor sport venues, which include: * Palmyra Drag Racing Club, 29 Bells Road () * Mackay and District Kart Club, 21 Grants Road () The dragway shares its site with the private Palmyra Airstrip which is used for recreational flying.

References

{{Mackay Region Mackay Region Localities in Queensland