Barringun 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 Shire of Paroo,

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. It is on the

border of Queensland Queensland is the north-eastern state of Australia and has land borders with three other Australian states and territories: New South Wales (to the south), South Australia (to the south-west) and Northern Territory (to the west). To the north o ...

and

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. In the , Barringun had a population of 17 people. The former border town of Wooroorooka is within the south-west of the locality ().

Geography

Barringun is bounded to the west by the

Warrego River The Warrego River is an intermittent river that is part of the Darling catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, which is located in South West Queensland and in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia. The Warrego River is the north ...

and to the south by the border with

. The Zero Obelisk marks the first official survey of the border between what were then the separate colonies of New South Wales and Queensland when an accurate definition of the border was important for legal and economic reasons. It illustrates a remarkable feat of surveying in the nineteenth century and is a reminder of the extraordinarily difficult conditions under which many early surveyors worked. Barringun Road enters the locality from the north ( Tuen) and exits to the south ( Barringun, New South Wales). It is part of the

Mitchell Highway Mitchell Highway is an outback state highway located in the central and south western regions of Queensland and the northern and central western regions of New South Wales in Australia. The southern part of Mitchell Highway forms part of t ...

that connects Cunnamulla, Queensland to

Bourke, New South Wales Bourke is a town in the north-west of New South Wales, Australia. The administrative centre and largest town in Bourke Shire, Bourke is approximately north-west of the state capital, Sydney, on the south bank of the Darling River. It is also si ...

. The principal land use is

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. Binya National Park is to the immediate west of the locality in Cuttaburra. Barringun is also the capital of the self-proclaimed Murrawarri Republic. Wooroorooka is located immediately north of the border with New South Wales and is on the Owangowan Creek; it is now abandoned.

History

The name ''Barringun'' is derived from the local Aboriginal word for the lower part of the

variously transcribed as ''Barronga'', ''Burringun'' or ''Barrongun''. The 1859 exploration of the river from its junction with the

Darling River The Darling River (or River Darling; Paakantyi: ''Baaka'' or ''Barka''), is the third-longest river in Australia, measuring from its source in northern New South Wales to its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth. Including its long ...

by Matthew De Rinzy showed that Aboriginal people lived at all the waterholes along the lower reaches of this river. They were also combative to the European incursion, with De Rinzy being wounded by a spear during one of the skirmishes on his journey. An early British settlement (possibly a pastoral station) on the

was named Barringun, which can be seen on an 1887 map as being just south of the New South Wales border. Barringun is also possibly an Aboriginal word meaning ''fish die in the water''. The name ''Wooroorooka'' appears to have come from a pastoral run which was owned by Mr Dangar in 1865 but was purchased in 1866 by

James Tyson James Tyson (8 April 1819 – 4 December 1898) was an Australian pastoralist. He is regarded as Australia's first self-made millionaire. His name became a byword for reticence, wealth and astute dealing. Early life James Tyson was born about ...

, who also purchased other runs in the area: Rottenrow, Gordonsheet and Teckulman. In June 1884, the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the state government of Queensland, Australia, a Parliament, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Government is formed by the party or coalition that has gained a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, ...

sold approximately 100 town lots in Wooroorooka. In 1885, discussions were being held between the New South Wales and Queensland colonial parliaments about a

rabbit-proof fence The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from ...

to prevent the spread of the pest. From 1885 when the railway was constructed to Bourke in

, farmers in south-western Queensland began to send their wool to markets via Bourke rather than the Charleville, then the terminus of the Western railway line in Queensland, as the

New South Wales Government The Government of New South Wales, also known as the NSW Government, is the executive state government of New South Wales, Australia. The government comprises 11 portfolios, led by a ministerial department and supported by several agencies. Th ...

offered more competitive rail freight rates than the

. Queensland Railway Commissioner James Thallon responded by negotiating with the Carrier's Union which carried goods to the Charleville railhead to make the cost of transporting the goods via Charleville more attractive. However, strikes by the carriers in support of the

1891 Australian shearers' strike The 1891 shearers' strike is one of Australia's earliest and most important industrial disputes. The dispute was primarily between Trade union, unionised and non-unionised wool workers. It resulted in the formation of large camps of striking wor ...

meant that goods continued to be travel via New South Wales, further encouraged by new lower freight rates in New South Wales announced in June 1893. The Queensland Government responded the following month by introducing the Railway Border Tax Act which taxed wool and sheepskins crossing the border into New South Wales to make it too expensive to freight the wool via New South Wales. However, this could only be a temporary measure as the anticipated

Federation of Australia The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Wester ...

was expected to introduce

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...

between the states of Australia removing the ability to tax goods at the border crossing. Therefore, on 3 December 1895, the

Queensland Parliament The Parliament of Queensland is the unicameral legislative body of the Australian state of Queensland. As provided under the Constitution of Queensland, the Parliament consists of the King, represented by the Governor of Queensland, and the ...

approved the construction of the extension of the Western railway line from Charleville to Cunnamulla. It was opened on 10 October 1898. A magistrate court operated in Wooroorooka from 12 June 1891 to 11 May 1944. Until the

in January 1901, Wooroorooka served as the

Colony of Queensland The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Australia, Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day Queensland, ...

border customs office, and across the border, Barringun was the

Colony of New South Wales The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New ...

border customs office. At this time, Wooroorooka had one customs officer, three police officers, a school teacher, and a post master. The Wooroorooka customs house, a cottage raised up on stumps, became the Border fence ranger's residence. Wooroorooka had a police station. Barringun existed to support the surrounding pastoral property needs, and the shearing season provided important employment. The local creek was able to support the town even during periods of low rainfall. Recreational activities including fishing on the Maranoa River and

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

with the nearby Belalie Station. The 1930s continued the town's interest in sports including horse races. A rail line from Bourke to Barringun was proposed in the late 1920s to the 1940s, to eventually connect with Cunnamulla for freight. The Queensland Government opposed the New South Wales initiative as it would draw trade (and state revenue) away from the south-west Queensland area. The road to the New South Wales border from Cunnamulla was sealed in bitumen by 1952. The road was considered part of the 'death knell' to the rail line proposal. The Barringun–Bourke section of the Mitchell Highway was expected to be bitumen sealed by 1971. Some properties in the area included Rostella, Winrae, Tinnenburra, Thurulgoona, Owengowan, and Amenda. During 2020 and 2021, the Queensland border was closed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Some border crossing points had

Queensland Police The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is the principal law enforcement agency responsible for policing the Australian state of Queensland. In 1990, the Queensland Police Force was officially renamed the Queensland Police Service and the old motto ...

checkpoints to confirm eligibility to enter Queensland, while other border crossing points were closed. At Barringun, there was a police border checkpoint on the Mitchell Highway.

Demographics

In the , Barringun had a population of 7 people. In the , Barringun had a population of 17 people.

Heritage listing

Barringun has a

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...

site on the east bank of the Warrego River at the border with New South Wales. The Zero Obelisk marks the beginning of the first official survey of the border between the two colonies.

Education

There are no schools in Barringun. The nearest primary and secondary schools are in

Cunnamulla Cunnamulla () is a town and a Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Shire of Paroo, Queensland, Australia. It is south of Charleville, Queensland, Charleville, and approximately west of the state capital, Brisbane. In the 2021 Au ...

, approximately away.

Distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance; today, it usually involves online ...

and

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

s are the alternatives.

Writings

The former town was the subject of a 1917 eight-verse poem of the same name by Scottish-Australian poet and bush balladeer Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963). :The sandhills north of Barringun stand shimmering in the heat, :The dust is driven dense and dun by forty thousand feet, :And dimly through the clouds that cling, beyond the Border Gate, :The kelpies swing along the wing to keep the leaders straight. :And I remember Barringun of thirty years ago :A few tin roofs that took the sun as white as driven snow; :Two bush hotels where loafers sat, a butcher's shop, a store, :A few goats feeding on the flat – and very little more! Working on the Belalie property, to the south near Enngonia, in the early 1890s Ogilvie was familiar with the New South Wales–Queensland border area. The poem ''Comrades'', from his anthology ''The Australian, and other verses'' (1916), also made reference to Barringun: :Do the shearers still go riding up the Warrego to work. :Where the Thurulgoona woolshed flashes silver in the sun? :Are the bullock-teams still bending through the cooiibahs to Bourke? :Is there racing at Enngonia? Is Belalie still a run? :Do the Diamantina cattle still come down by Barringun? Ogilvie also wrote a short story about the mail run to the town entitled ''His Majesty's mail'' (1922).

References

External links

* {{authority control Shire of Paroo Towns in Queensland Localities in Queensland