Taldora is an
outback
The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...
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 Mckinlay
The Shire of McKinlay is a local government area in outback north-western Queensland, Australia.
It covers an area of , and has existed as a local government entity since 1891. The shire economy is based on beef production and mining. BHP opera ...
,
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 , Taldora had a population of 78 people.
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Geography
The Wills Developmental Road
The Wills Developmental Road is a road in north-west Queensland running between Julia Creek and Burketown. As of 2016 it is sealed with a total length of . There are no major towns along the entire route, but fuel and supplies are available at ...
enters the locality from the south ( Julia Creek) and exits to the west ( Four Ways).Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...
.Cloncurry River
The Cloncurry River is situated in the Gulf Country of north west Queensland, Australia.
Geography
The headwaters of the river rise west of Mount Boorama near Mount Tracey in the Selwyn Range (Australia), Selwyn Range and initially flows nort ...
enters the locality from the south-west (Cloncurry
Cloncurry is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. It is informally known by local people as The Curry. Cloncurry is the administrative centre of the Shire of Cloncurry.
Cloncurry is known as the ''Friendl ...
) and exits to the west (Four Ways). The Flinders River
The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia, at approximately . It was named in honour of the explorer Matthew Flinders. The catchment is sparsely populated and mostly undeveloped. The Flinders rises on the western slopes o ...
enters the locality from the south-east (Malpas-Trenton) and traverses the north-western boundary of the locality with Four Ways before exiting to the north-west ( Stokes). The Saxby River enters from the east (Malpas-Trenton) and exits to the north ( Fielding).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.
History
Taldora was a cattle station from at least 1866. In 1878 a monthly mail service was established which passed through Taldora, and in 1880 it was referred to as a township. In July 1880 a new company purchased Taldora and began developing the station.
In 1900, Taldora was affected by a drought with rats infecting its water supply and a lack of rain resulting in no grass growing on the station and its waterhole drying up for the first time since 1880. In 1916 it was reported that Taldora was supporting 30,000 head of cattle which was three times the amount of Nockatunga Station
Nockatunga Station, most commonly known as Nockatunga, is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in South West Queensland, Australia.
Description
Nockatunga is located about east of Innamincka, South Australia, Innamincka and so ...
which was the largest station in the state geographically.
In early 1947, Australian Aboriginal stockman Johnny Knight set out from Taldora to walk 150 miles to Normanton and went missing. A police search was launched which extended as far as Thursday Island
Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kalaw Lagaw Ya, Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately ...
and in July 1947 his swag was found and in July 1948 a skeleton which was found which may have been his remains. In 1953 an elderly man, Patrick Murphy, went missing while camping near Taldora where he was employed for ringbarking.
Demographics
In the , Taldora had a population of 37 people.
Education
There are no schools in Taldora. The nearest government primary school is Julia Creek State School in neighbouring Julia Creek to the south; however, it would be too distant for a daily commute for most of the locality of Taldora. Also, there are no secondary schools nearby. The alternatives are 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.
Economy
There are a number of homesteads in the locality:
Transport
There are a number of airstrips in the locality:
* Arizona Airstrip ()
References
{{Shire of Mckinlay
Shire of Mckinlay
Localities in Queensland