Cloncurry

Cloncurry is a town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia.

Cloncurry is a town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the shire. At the 2016 census, Cloncurry recorded a population of 2,719 people.Cloncurry is known as the Friendly Heart of the Great North West and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2017.Cloncurry was recognised for its liveability, winning the Queensland's Friendliest Town award twice by environmental movement Keep Queensland Beautiful, first in 2013 and again in 2018.

Kalkatunga (also known as Kalkadoon, Kalkadunga, Kalkatungu) is an Australian Aboriginal language. The Kalkatunga language region is North-West Queensland including the local government areas of the City of Mount Isa.The first Europeans to traverse these tribal lands of peoples such as the Maithakari and the Wanamara, were Burke and Wills on their epic, and ultimately fatal, transcontinental expedition. The Cloncurry River was named by Burke after Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry, his cousin, with the town eventually taking its name from the river.

Ernest Henry discovered copper in the area in 1867,and the town sprang up to service the Great Australia Mine to the south. Roger Sheaffe established the first pastoral run in the Cloncurry district - "Fort Constantine".Gold was discovered at Top Camp.The town was surveyed in 1876. Cloncurry was proclaimed a town in 1884.

The Cloncurry Advocate was a newspaper published in Cloncurry between 1889 and 1953.Queensland's Northern Line railway reached Cloncurry in December 1907 and was officially opened the next year.

St Joseph's School opened on 29 October 1909 by the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.In 1914 a fire broke out in the town resulting in the destruction of the Post Office, the hotel, eleven shops, two store-rooms and a cottage. The telegraph office was saved by employees who kept the office damp and protected with wet blankets. One man died in the blaze which cost an estimated £15,000.From 1915 to 1931 the Australian Inland Mission (part of the Presbyterian Church) operated its North West Patrol in Cloncurry which provided religious services to people in remote areas by driving through the Outback; the service later operated from Mount Isa. A similar service, the Federal Methodist Inland Mission Patrol commencedwas established in 1928 at its Gulf Mission Base in Camooweal. The amalgamation of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia intended to combine these outback services, creating a huge North West Patrol area to be covered which could not be achieved by road transport, so the Cloncurry congregation purchased an aircraft in 1976 to provide the patrol service out of Cloncurry by air wherever possible, using road travel only to access places that did not have suitable airstrips. In the early 1990s the service was renamed the McKay Patrol to honour Reverend Fred McKay, an early patrol padre who had been involved in establishing the Royal Flying Doctor Service.During World War II, Cloncurry was the location of RAAF No.23 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), completed in 1942 and closed on 14 August 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000 ($1,800,000).The discovery of uranium at Mary Kathleen brought wealth to the community in the 1950s. Until the development of Mount Isa in the 1960s, Cloncurry was the administrative centre of the region.The first-ever flight of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia took place from Cloncurry on 15 May 1928, using a de Havilland DH.50 aircraft hired from the then small airline, Qantas. A Royal Flying Doctor Service museum is situated in the town.

The population in Cloncurry decreased from 3,898 in 1996 to 2,900 in 2002. It declined further to 2,719 by 2016.The Cloncurry Bob McDonald Library opened in 2012.It was announced on 11 February 2021 that Cloncurry had been chosen as the production location of the 2021 edition of Network 10's reality game show Australian Survivor. The domestic location resulted from concerns regarding international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was filmed in Cloncurry from 22 April to 8 June 2021, with the season airing on 18 July 2021.

Cloncurry was widely regarded as holding the record for the highest temperature recorded in Australia at 53.1 °C (127.5 °F)on 16 January 1889. Recent investigations have revealed that this temperature was measured in an improvised screen made from a beer crate and that it equated to 47–49 °C under standard conditions. The highest temperature ever recorded at Cloncurry's current weather station is 46.9 °C (116.4 °F), well short of the now widely disputed 1889 temperature of 53.1 °C. The average annual rainfall is 584.5 mm (23.01 in), almost all of which falls In the months of December to March

Because of the area's extreme solar conditions, Cloncurry was expected to become Australia's first solar-powered town. However the planned 10MW Thermal solar plant was scrapped due to light pollution concerns and a 2.128MW flat panel photovoltaic solar farm was to be built in its place. However, the Queensland Government withdrew financial support for the solar farm in May 2012.

Attractions in Cloncurry include:

Flying Doctor museum and a mineral display in the old post office.