Mungindi is a town and locality on the border of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland, Australia. The town is within Moree Plains Shire in New South Wales. Within Queensland, the locality is split between the Shire of Balonne (the western part) and the Goondiwindi Region (eastern part) with the town in the Shire of Balonne. It possesses a New South Wales postcode. Mungindi sits on the Carnarvon Highway and straddles the Barwon River which is the border between New South Wales and Queensland. At the , Mungindi had a population of 601 on the New South Wales side, while the population on the Queensland side was 146.
Geography
Mungindi means water hole in the river in Kamilaroi. Located uniquely on both sides of the New South Wales and Queensland border, Mungindi is the only border town in the Southern Hemisphere with the same name on both sides of the border. The state border runs down the centre of the Barwon River and under the centre of the Mungindi Bridge, but there is no exact marker on the bridge to indicate the point.
Nearby towns are Moree in New South Wales and St George in Queensland. Nearby villages are, in New South Wales, Weemelah, Garah, Ashley and Boomi, and in Queensland, the towns of Thallon, Dirranbandi and Hebel. A section of the Carnarvon Highway via Mungindi makes up part of the shortest route from Sydney to Darwin. There is an airport close to the town.
History
Mungindi and the surrounding areas were originally inhabited by Aborigines of the Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) tribe. Their tribal grounds extended from the Barwon River to south of the Namoi River near Gunnedah. Gamilaraay (Gamilaroi, Kamilaroi, Comilroy) is a language from South-West Queensland and North-West New South Wales. The Gamilaraay language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Balonne Shire Council, including the towns of Dirranbandi, Thallon, Talwood and Bungunya as well as the border towns of Mungindi and Boomi extending to Moree, Tamworth and Coonabarabran in NSW.
Yuwaalaraay (also known as Yuwalyai, Euahlayi, Yuwaaliyaay, Gamilaraay, Kamilaroi, Yuwaaliyaayi) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Yuwaalaraay country. The Yuwaalaraay language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Shire of Balonne, including the town of Dirranbandi as well as the border town of Hebel extending to Walgett and Collarenebri in New South Wales.
Major Thomas Mitchell passed through Mungindi on his exploration of the interior in search of new areas suitable for agricultural development during the 1830s.
By the 1850s, with stock moving on both sides of the Barwon River, the ford at Mungindi just upstream from the present bridge became the principal crossing. Reliable waterholes and shaded flats on the riverbanks provided early drovers with a pleasant camp in the area, which the Gamilaroi Aboriginal People had held since antiquity as an important meeting place. Regular use of the track is indicated by the fact that two, stock routes were proclaimed by 1868, both to Mungindi, one from St George and one from Whyenbah via Dareel.
The movement of drovers and the coming of settlers soon attracted others to provide them with goods and services. The first known of these services was a hotel, or inn. Built in 1863 by Alexander Grant Walker, it was located on the south bank of the river. Alexander was certainly moved by the pioneering spirit. After coming to New South Wales from Scotland at the age of twenty-one, he married at Murrurundi and brought his bride to Moree where they were among the first to purchase land in the town area. They built a hotel in Frome Street but within twelve months transferred the licence to Alexander's Mungindi Inn, also known as Walker's Hotel and in later years, The Green Hut. He built himself a cottage and also stables for the use of hotel patrons. These buildings were along the bank of the Barwon between present day North-Western Motors and Quinn's Motors, near the crossing which was then east of Garden Island. It was then that Alexander applied for along the river.
Queensland became a separate colony in 1859 and by 1862 the Queensland Government was operating a packhorse mail service between Surat and Yarawa. A private mail service had for some years run from Yarawa to Moree. This was later extended to Mungindi town. By 1865, the volume of mail prompted the Postmaster-General of Queensland to send an inspector who recommended Alexander Walker's appointment as postmaster.