Ilfracombe is a small town in Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 that calls itself The Hub of the West. The main industry is sheep rearing, mainly for wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

. Ilfracombe is situated on the Landsborough Highway

Landsborough Highway

Landsborough Highway is a western Queensland highway running in the northwest-southeast direction from Morven to Cloncurry. The Landsborough Highway runs through vast tracts of land that was once occupied by William Landsborough, an Australian explorer of the 19th century...

, about 27 km east of Longreach, 214 metres above sea level, within the Longreach Region local government area.

The town was named after a small town

Ilfracombe

Ilfracombe is a seaside resort and civil parish on the North Devon coast, England with a small harbour, surrounded by cliffs.The parish stretches along the coast from 'The Coastguard Cottages' in Hele Bay toward the east and 4 miles along The Torrs to Lee Bay toward the west...

 in Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

 England. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Ilfracombe and the surrounding region had a population of 269. The town itself has a population of 190.

Notable people from the area include Quentin Bryce

Quentin Bryce

Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO is the 25th and current Governor-General of Australia and former Governor of Queensland....

, Governor of Queensland and Governor-General of Australia

Governor-General of Australia

The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...

 from September 2008,, Paul Wilson

Paul Wilson (meditation teacher)

Paul Wilson is a meditation teacher, columnist, and author of two novels and 19 self-help and spiritually-oriented books, including The Calm Technique, Instant Calm, The Little Book of Calm, Calm at Work, The Little Book of Calm at Work, Calm for Life, The Complete Book of Calm, Perfect Balance,...

, author of the international best selling The Little Book of Calm and the Calm series of books and rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 footballer Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott is an Australian professional rugby league footballer and current co-captain for the North Queensland Cowboys of the National Rugby League...

.

It is home to a collection of antique agricultural machinery at the Ilfracombe Machinery and Heritage Museum. Other attractions and facilities in the town include a swimming pool, a 14-hole golf course, racecourse and caravan park.

History

Sheep stations were established in the area from 1864. The Central railway line reached Ilfracombe in 1891. The town was much larger in the past. It once had three hotels instead of the single hotel there now and two general stores.

External links

• Ilfracombe Shire at Queensland Places