Mon Repos is a coastal

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

Bundaberg Region The Bundaberg Region is a local government area in the Wide Bay–Burnett region of Queensland, Australia, about north of Brisbane, the state capital. It is centred on the city of Bundaberg, and also contains a significant rural area surroundin ...

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 , Mon Repos had a population of 24 people.

Geography

Mon Repos Beach () is a long sandy beach along most of the coastline at Mon Repos. Most of the coastline is within the Mon Repos Conservation Park (), established to protect the nesting areas of turtles. The north of the locality is still used for agriculture, a mixture of grazing and crop growing. The south of the locality is reserved for environmental purposes. There are some small pockets of housing and a caravan park on the coast The Barolin Nature Reserve is inland of the conservation park (). It is filled with grassy plains and wetlands and has a sizeable population of birds. Earlier known as Pasturage Reserve, it was primarily used for cattle grazing. However, grazing has been reduced significantly to save the forest.

History

''Mon Repos'' is French for "My Rest" and was the name of the homestead built in 1884 by Augustus Purling Barton, a Queensland sugar industry pioneer. Barton also built the Mon Repos sugar-mill in 1884, as a crushing plant, which was converted into a manufacturing plant in 1888.

State Library of Queensland State Library of Queensland (State Library) is the state public reference and research library of Queensland, Australia, operated by the Government of Queensland, state government. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Queensland, whi ...

hold the Barton Family records which includes information about the Mon Repos homestead and the running of the Barton's sugar mills and plantations. In the 1890s, the governments of France, Queensland and New South Wales decided to construct an undersea telegraph cable to link Australia to North America across the Pacific Ocean via

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

, and Hawaii. The cable came ashore at Mon Repos, where a cable station was constructed. The cable was used until the 1920s when it was replaced by a radio service via Sydney and the cable station demolished. The cables remained in place under the sea where they were used during

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 ...

by the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

to train crews in

midget submarine A midget submarine is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to six or nine, with little or no on-board living accommodation. They normally work with mother ships, from which they are launched an ...

s operating from to cut cables in preparation to cut undersea telephone cables in Tokyo. Two lieutenants Bruce Enzer and Bruce Carey died during the training. Some remains of the cable station can be seen within the caravan park. Sandhills Provisional School opened on 20 March 1893. On 1 January 1909 it became Sandhills State School. In January 1921 it was renamed Bargara State School. In 1912 pioneer aviator

Bert Hinkler Herbert John Louis Hinkler (8 December 1892 – 7 January 1933), better known as Bert Hinkler, was a pioneer Australian aviator (dubbed "Australian Lone Eagle") and inventor. He designed and built early aircraft before being the first person ...

launched one of his first home-made gliders on Mon Repos Beach and flew above the sand dunes.

Demographics

In the , Mon Repos had a population of 30 people. In the , Mon Repos had a population of 24 people.

Heritage listings

Mon Repos has a number of

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 ...

sites, including Grange Road:

South Sea Islander Wall South Sea Islander Wall is a heritage-listed plantation at Grange Road, Mon Repos, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built circa 1884 by South Sea Islander labour. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 October 20 ...

Around 1884 Augustus Barton, owner of the Mon Repos homestead used

South Sea Islander South Sea Islanders, formerly referred to as Kanakas, are the Australian descendants of Pacific Islanders from more than 80 islandsincluding the Oceanian archipelagoes of the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Gilbert Islands ...

indentured labour on his properties, which before being planted with cane had to be cleared of scoria stones, remnants of a volcanic formation located nearby. These stones were then used to construct the South Sea Islander Walls which remain substantially intact and are now heritage listed, a reminder of the people who were brought to work as slaves on Queensland farms between 1863 and 1904.

Education

Despite the name, Bargara State School is a government primary (Prep-6) school for boys and girls at 591 Bargara Road in Mon Repos (). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 448 students with 31 teachers (26 full-time equivalent) and 22 non-teaching staff (13 full-time equivalent). There are no secondary schools in Mon Repos. The nearest secondary school is Kepnock State High School in Kepnock in

Bundaberg Bundaberg () is the major regional city in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the List of cities in Australia by population, ninth largest city in the state. The Bundaberg central business district is situa ...

to the south-west.

Facilities

Despite the name, Bargara SES Facility is at 18 Potters Road in Mon Repos ().

Attractions

The Mon Repos Turtle Centre was built in 2019 by Queensland Parks & Wildlife to facilitate research and education surrounding turtle conservation. It offers visits and tours to the public and school groups.

References

External links

Mon Repos Plantation
John Oxley Library Blog, State Library of Queensland. {{Bundaberg Region Bundaberg Region Coastline of Queensland Localities in Queensland