Camooweal

Camooweal is an outback town and locality in the City of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia.

Camooweal is an outback town and locality in the City of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. The locality is on the Queensland border with the Northern Territory. In the 2016 census the locality of Camooweal had a population of 208 people.

The area was originally inhabited by the Indjilandji Indigenous Australians.William Landsborough in 1861 named the Barkly Tablelands after the Governor of Victoria, His Excellency, Sir Henry Barkly. He also named Lake Francisafter his niece Frances Landsborough. The first Britisher to attempt to colonise the area was George Sutherland, who took up the Rocklands lease in 1865. Sutherland arrived at Lake Mary on the Georgina River with 8,000 sheep, which caused the Aboriginal people, who were sleeping at time, to run. Sutherland was attacked by them on several occasions in the following months. When fellow colonists William Lyne and Henry Steiglitz arrived on the river, Sutherland "deemed it fully time to make a raid and drive them [the Aboriginal people] back." One of the group fired a shot, hitting a group of boomerangs which scared the Aboriginal people into fleeing.Stock losses to the local dingos and wedge-tailed eagles; lack of water and isolation soon forced him to abandon his lease. The Englishmen Benjamin Crosthwaite and William Tetley, who were marginally more successful, took up the lease again in 1876.

The origin of the town's name is uncertain. One theory is that it take its name from surveyor George Telford Weale, who surveyed the area using camels in the early 1880s. Another theory is that it is an Aboriginal word meaning strong wind.The initial town was gazetted in 1884 to be built on a 4-square-mile (10 km2) plot by Lake Francis. A year later the present site was re-gazetted and Camooweal Post Office opened on 27 April 1885. A police station opened in 1886.

Camooweal Provisional School opened on 5 June 1893. On 1 Jan 1909 it became Camooweal State School.The town bore was drilled in 1897.

On 2 January 1931, a Qantas Air Ambulance from the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia flown by E.G. Donaldson rescued a man in Camooweal and delivered him to Brisbane.

The road through Camooweal to the Northern Territory (now the Barkly Highway) was the inland defence route for World War II. This road was built by army engineers and carried over 1000 vehicles a day and there are numerous historical sites marked along the road.

The town had electricity from 1952.

St Therese's Catholic Church was officially opened on 30 April 1961 by Hugh Edward Ryan, Bishop of Townsville.The Camooweal Caves National Park was gazetted on 16 December 1994.

Given the economic importance of transport on the Barkly Highway (the only sealed road between Queensland and the Northern Territory), a longstanding problem was the flooding of the Georgina River at Camooweal. During floods, the Barkly Highway bridge over the Georgina River was often unusable for many days , with road trains and other heavy vehicles having to wait weeks before it was safe to cross. To alleviate these problems, the new Georgina River Bridge was officially opened on 20 December 2002 by Senator Ron Boswell and Steve Breadhauer, Minister for Transport in the Queensland Government. It replaced the previous bridge which was approximately 50 metres (160 ft) south and was both higher and longer so traffic on the highway could continue to cross during floods. The bridge is 417 metres (1,368 ft) long and is accompanied by a 5.6-kilometre (3.5 mi) highway deviation west from Camooweal. The bridge uses an unusual arch design to avoid placing pylons into the river bed which is culturally significant to the local Dugalunji people, who call the new bridge Ilaga Thuwani meaning The Camping Ground of the Rainbow Serpent.In 2005 the Mount Isa City Council erected a war memorial outside the community hall (former shire hall of the Shire of Barkly Tableland).At the 2011 census, Camooweal had a population of 187.In the 2016 census the locality of Camooweal had a population of 208 people.

The Drover's Camp is a museum celebrating the contribution of drovers. It is just off the Barkly Highway about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) east of the town at 56 Beaumont Street (19.9216°S 138.1332°E? / -19.9216; 138.1332? (Drover's Camp)).