Millaroo is a rural town and

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 Burdekin The Shire of Burdekin is a local government area located in North Queensland, Australia in the Dry Tropics region. The district is located between Townsville and Bowen in the delta of the Burdekin River. The shire covers an area of . It has e ...

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 , the locality of Millaroo had a population of 86 people.

Geography

The locality is bounded to the west by the

Burdekin River The Burdekin River is a river in North and Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the northern slopes of Boulder Mountain at Valley of Lagoons, part of the western slope of the Seaview Range, and flows into the Coral Sea at Upsta ...

. The place is located about south-east of

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

, about inland from 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 ...

. It is a

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 ...

growing area with underground water supplies to irrigate crops.

Climate

Millaroo has a dry-winter humid subtropical climate, bordering on a

tropical savannah climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry "winter") and ''As'' (for a dry "summer"). The driest month has less than ...

( Köppen: Cwa/Aw). The town experiences a short

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Generally, the season lasts at least one month. The term ''green season'' is also sometimes used a ...

from December to March and a long

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The t ...

from April to October with cooler nights and higher sunshine. Average maxima vary from in November and December to in July, while average minima fluctuate between in January and in July. Mean average annual

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

is moderate: ; but is highly concentrated during the

summer Summer or summertime is the hottest and brightest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, daylight hours are the longest and darkness hours are the shortest, with day ...

; and is spread across 57.2 precipitation days (above the threshold). Extreme temperatures have ranged from on 13 February 1969 to on 24 June 1984.

History

Queensland State Archives 1820 Millaroo Experiment Station buildings under construction November 1955

The name Millaroo comes from Millaroo Creek, which in turn was recorded by surveyor Robert Abbott in 1895, but the original of that name are unknown. There was a pastoral property of that name. Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, a number of soldier settlement blocks were established in the area for the purpose of growing

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, but it was not successful. In 1952, there was a plan to establish a new irrigation area along the Burdekin River based around a new town. The town to be called Millaroo was to be established as a "modern" "first class" planned town with reserves, parks, and industrial zones suitable for a population of 6,000 (a similar population to that of Ayr at that time). The buildings were to be constructed with brick and concrete to reduce the fire risk. In 1952, the Millaroo Research Station was established by the

Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock The Department of Primary Industries is the Queensland Government department responsible for developing Queensland's Primary sector of the economy, primary industries. The section known as Biosecurity Queensland is responsible for biosecurity m ...

to undertake agricultural research to benefit North Queensland. The Burdekin Gorge Weir () on the Burdekin River (between Ravenswood and

Mount Wyatt The Rawson Mountains () lie within the Queen Maud Mountains to the southeast of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. They are a crescent-shaped range of tabular, ice-covered mountains including Fuller Dome, Mount Wyatt and Mount Verlautz, standing so ...

) was completed in November 1953 to provide water for irrigation. This led to the land at Millaroo switching to growing sugarcane. Millaroo State School opened on 19 July 1954. Millaroo Post Office opened on 1 July 1955 and closed in 1972.

Demographics

In the , the locality of Millaroo had a population of 200 people. In the , the locality of Millaroo had a population of 96 people. In the , the locality of Millaroo had a population of 86 people.

Education

Millaroo State School is a government primary (Early Childhood-6) school for boys and girls at 1-13 Cunningham Street (). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 9 students with 3 teachers (2 full-time equivalent) and 6 non-teaching staff (2 full-time equivalent). There is no secondary school in Millaroo. The nearest secondary school is Home Hill State High School in

Home Hill Home Hill is a rural town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Shire of Burdekin, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Home Hill had a population of 2,876 people. At the delta of the Burdekin River, it is a sugarc ...

to the north-east, but, given the distance, families may prefer to use

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 ...

or boarding schools.

References

External links

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