Darling Downs: black soil and rolling grass seas

Abstract

The quintessential Darling Downs landscape of the nineteenth century was characterised by black soil and ‘rolling grass seas’ which held the sheep, woolsheds and large pastoral stations of wealthy squatters. One of Queensland's most productive pastoral areas, it became celebrated in both art and literature. The Darling Downs is complex and difficult to define and locate on a map, being between 130-250 km west of Brisbane. Ranging from 500 m to 650 m above sea level, it is a distinctive cool region of Queensland bounded in the north by the Bunya Mountains, in the east by the Great Dividing Range, in the south by the Granite Belt and Herries Range, and on the west by the Condamine River.