Takes its’ name from the cypress pine tree, “Callitris columellaris”, which the Indigenous inhabitants called “kululu” or “kululoi”.
Commonly called the coastal sand cypress to distinguish it from other species of cypress pine, it used to flourish in clumps and patches near the coast along the banks of the Noosa River and around the shores of Tin Can Inlet, sometimes extending into eucalypt forests and paperbark swamps just above high tide mark.
Growing taller than forty metres, the tree has rough, black bark and dark green, drooping foliage. Its’ timber is resinous, aromatic, resistant to termites and useful for construction. The soil beneath a grove of cypress pines is sandy and covered in soft pine needles, the atmosphere cool and dark, making it a pleasant place to camp.
Some writers have speculated that the sound of the sea breeze murmuring in the dense foliage above an Aboriginal campsite was the origin of its’ name.
Today the splendid groves of these attractive trees are gone, cut for timber and firewood or burnt in the frequent fires associated with cattle grazing.
Although young cypress pines can be seen throughout Cooloola, the only remaining stands of well-grown trees are located in remote parts of the Wide Bay Military Reserve on the western shore of Tin Can Inlet, and a few large specimens are preserved in Noosa National Park.
(Courtesy of Elaine Brown – “Cooloola Coast: Noosa to Fraser Island – the Aboriginal and settler histories of a lost society”)
The origin of the word “Tincan” is obscure, but the ethnologist F. J. Watson recorded that it was derived from “tindchin” or “tindhin”, an Aboriginal name for a species of mangrove. The name Tin Can was given to the Tin Can Inlet following William Pettigrew’s exploration of the area in 1865. Since mangroves line its shores, it is probably derived from the Aboriginal word ‘tindchin’, meaning mangrove. The name appears in the Gympie Times in 1870, when three men who were heading for ‘Tincan Bay’ became lost during very wet weather. The grave of sawmiller William Sim in the Maryborough cemetery states that he was killed at ‘Cooloola Tincan’ in 1873.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Norman Point"
"I believe that Norman Point was named after a baby that was borne there to a lighthouse keepers wife awaiting a boat to take her to Maryborough Hospital to give birth ......exact date/family name not known"
(Courtesy of Rod Robertson) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Inskip"
Inskip Point was named after a British naval officer, George Hastings Inskip (1823-1915), who served as Second Master on the marine survey ship “Rattlesnake” during its’ voyages along the coasts of Queensland and New Guinea from 1846-1850.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Rainbow Beach"
Rainbow Beach is a recent name which refers to the nearby cliffs of coloured sand for which the beach is famous. Before the township of Rainbow Beach was established in 1969, the area was called Mudlo, an Aboriginal word meaning ‘rock’ – in this case the ancient coffee rock along the foreshore.
(Above courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) – Cooloola Coast/Rainbow Beach Community News
Vol. 10 Issue 2 February 2008
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"Mullins/Mullens Creeks" In the 1880’s, James (Jim) Mullins/Mullens was a cedar-getter at Goomboorian, taking his logs out through Tin Can Bay.
He was killed in a timber accident, and was buried in a small cemetery at Goomboorian.
It is believed that the Mullins’ Creeks at Goomboorian and Tin Can Bay were named after him.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown)
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"Mary Valley/Mary River"
Aboriginal names for the Mary River varied along its length, but in its lower reaches it was called Moonabulla. Explorer Andrew Petrie discovered the river’s mouth in 1842, sailed up it as far as Tiaro , and named it the Wide Bay River. In 1847, George Furber settled on the river at Baddow and began to export wool from sheep stations further inland.
In 1847, Surveyor James Burnett explored two rivers in the Wide Bay region for the Governor, Sir Charles Fitzroy. Pleased with Burnett’s report, Fitzroy named the inland river the Burnett and re-named the Wide Bay River after his wife, Lady Mary Fitzroy.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) _________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Brooloo" Brooloo, a timber and farming district, was originally a part of Imbil Station called Bluff Paddock.
(In reference to a nearby Geological feature titled "Brooloo Bluff"). To view Images of “Brooloo Bluff" Click here
A map made in 1865 shows ‘Blooloo’, an Aboriginal word for ‘white colour’, but the spelling on an 1871 map is ‘Brooloo’.
In 1915, the Railway Department opened the inland terminus of the Mary Valley line at Brooloo, where a small settlement existed until its Grand Hotel burnt down in 1957.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Imbil"
Imbil is a small town in the Mary Valley.
Its name is derived from the Aboriginal word for a scrub vine, variously described as a ‘bamboo vine’ or ‘a climbing vine that contained water, which the Aborigines used to drink’.
In 1857, the Bunya Creek and Bluff Plains runs held by J. D. McTaggart were joined to form Imbil Station, which was leased first by the Lawless Brothers and then by Gympie butchers, Elworthy and Mellor.
The present town was established when the Mary Valley Railway came through in 1914. (Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Kandanga"
Kandangais a township on the creek of the same name, and a railway station on the Mary Valley Railway line.
The Aboriginal word Kandanga has been given several meanings.
Walter Woolgar stated that it was a name for the ‘cabbage tree’.
F. J. Watson said it referred to ‘a fork, elbow, or sharp bend in a creek’ – kundi – together with nga, ‘consisting of’.
John Mathew said that koondangur, came from kunda, ‘a mountain ridge’ and ngur, ‘belonging to’.
Originally a grazing property, the township was subdivided in 1914.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Amamoor"
Amamoor is a creek flowing into the Mary River and a railway station on the Mary Valley line.
‘Amamor or Police Creek’ is mentioned in J. D. McTaggart’s application for the Bunya Creek run in 1851.
‘Amarmoor or Running Creek’ is mentioned in Pugh’s Almanac in 1862, and when John McGill took up land on the creek in 1868, he named his property ‘Amamoor’.
The name may derive from the Aboriginal amamah, meaning ‘swimming water’, after a string of fine water holes, or umama, meaning ‘big trees’, after the large blue gums on a flat where Aborigines would gather before going into the scrubs to feast on bunya nuts.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Traveston"
Traveston is a district, a river crossing and a railway station.
The name first appeared in 1857, when Robert Glisson, a clerk in Ipswich, applied to lease two 16,000 acre cattle runs on the Mary River – Traverston and North Traverston.
It is possible that Glisson was acting as agent for well-known land speculators, the Travers Brothers, hence the name.
The Traverston run changed owners three times before being resumed in 1868.
Its manager, Thomas Powell, then acquired 3,000 acres and the head station.
Powell’s son Charles stated that Traverston was named after the man who first explored the area, and since a man named Travers lived in Maryborough in the 1850s, this origin is also possible.
In 1867, James Nash, a wandering prospector, spent the night at Traverston Station before moving north to discover the Gympie goldfield.
For the rest of the century, Thomas Powell prospered by supplying the goldfield with meat.
On his death in 1909, he was buried near his homestead.
To Powell’s disgust, when the government named the Traveston Railway station in 1889, the ‘r’ was dropped from the spelling.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Churingas”
“A Tjurunga or as it sometimes spelled, Churinga, is an object of religious significance by Central Australian indigenous people of the Arrernte (Aranda, Arunta) groups.
Tjurunga often had a wide and indeterminate native significance, they included: sacred ceremonies, stone objects, wooden sacred objects, bullroarers, sacred ground paintings, ceremonial poles, ceremonial headgear, sacred chants and sacred earth mounds.
Generally speaking, tjurunga denote sacred stone or wooden objects possessed by private or group owners together with the legends, chants, and ceremonies associated with them.
They were present among the Arunta, the Loritja, the Kaitish, the Unmatjera, and the Illpirra.
These items are generally oblong pieces of polished stone or wood.
Some of these items have hair or string strung through them, and were named "bull roarers" by Europeans.
Upon each tjurunga is a totem of the group to which it belongs.
Tjurunga are highly sacred, in fact, they are considered so sacred that only a few are able to see them and likewise it is considered sacrilegious to post a picture of them.”
(Acknowledgements to “Wikipedia””) __________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Coonan Gibber"
Coonan Gibber is an Aboriginal name meaning ‘big stone’.
Coonan Gibber Creek appears on a map drawn by Surveyor W.C.B. Wilson before Gympie gold was discovered.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Borumba Dam"
Borumba is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘place of minnows’.
‘Burun’ was the name of the mountain minnow (Galaxias), also called the common jollytail or eel gudgeon.
‘Ba’ means ‘place of’.
The Borumba Dam, which supplies Gympie with water, has been built on Borumba Creek.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Noosa"
According to the ethnologist F. J. Watson, Noosa is derived from the Aboriginal word, nguthuru, which means a shadow, a shade, a departed spirit, a ghost.
The change from nguruthu to Noosa illustrates the difficulty of transcribing sounds from one language to another.
The English language does not use an initial ‘ng’ sound or that particular ‘th’ sound, which is made with the tongue and sounds like a hiss.
The Aboriginal language does not have an ‘s’ sound, made with the teeth.
When the word nguthuru was heard in 1863 by a Scotsman named William Pettigrew, he pronounced it ‘New-sa’ and wrote it down as ‘Noosa’.
For the next thirty years it was spelt Newsa, then Neusa.
In the 1890s, it reverted to Pettigrew’s spelling, and it has been Noosa ever since.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Yabba"
Yabba comes from the Aboriginal ‘yapper’, the currajong tree.
The almost inaccessible Yabba Station was established in 1852 by the Swanson brothers, who brought their sheep into upper Yabba Creek over the rugged Jimna Range and built their homestead above the spectacular Yabba Falls.
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Gympie"
Gimpi gimpi was the Aboriginal name for a shrub, Dendrocnide moroides, which grows in the rainforest, especially where light penetrates to the forest floor along creek banks or tracks.
This shrub bears attractive pink berries, but stinging hairs on its large green leaves cause severe pain when even lightly touched.
Stockmen from Widgee and Curra Stations had given the name ‘Gimpi’ to a creek that flowed into the Mary River not far north of the gully where the prospector James Nash discovered alluvial gold in 1867.
The first reports from Maryborough described the discovery as ‘on Gimpi adjoining Currie’.
The settlement that sprang up on the goldfield was at first called Nashville, to honour the discoverer.
A year later, having made his fortune, James Nash left for a holiday in England, and soon after his departure the Queensland Government changed the name from Nashville to Gympie.
(This may have been prompted by complaints that letters for Nashville, Queensland, were being sent by mistake to Nashville, Tennessee.)
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Lake Alford”
"“Lake Alford” was named after Frank “Tiny” Alford, who lived on Geordie Road opposite the “Duck Ponds”.
He took an interest in the development of the park there.
He was custodian of the ducks which frequented the area, and mowed the area on the southern side of the lake.
Frank Alford was called “Tiny” because he was so big, the biggest of the Alfords."
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown & Beth Wilson, Local History Officer, Gympie Regional Libraries) __________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Carlo"
"There are quite a lot of features named Carlo, such as Carlo Creek, Carlo Island, and the Sandblow.
There are rumours that the Sandblow is named after a deck hand on Capt Cooks’ ship, but there is no solid evidence of this, and it seems unlikely that he would be naming features after deck hands.
Carlo Point could have been named after a person who was engaged in the logging industry, though there is no evidence of anyone called Carlo, so it could have been a nickname."
(Courtesy of Beth Wilson, Local History Officer, Gympie Regional Libraries)
"The names Carlo Point, Carlo Creek and Carlo Sandblow date from the timber days.
Since most of the names around Tin Can Bay refer to timber-getters, oystermen or fishermen, I suspect Carlo may have been one of these.
One of William Pettigrew’s timber-getters was named Carlin, which may be the origin of Carland Creek.
"From 1947 to 1977 it was the site of a large forestry camp.
The men were obliged to work for two years in the forestry plantations, planting, weeding, chipping, cutting timber and building roads and firebreaks.
At first the camp lacked running water and conveniences and the people lived in tents, but they soon built their own hall , and the tents were later replaced by huts."
(Courtesy of Local Historian Dr Elaine Brown)
“Named after Bob Stirling, an early settler, the Stirlings Crossing Forestry Camp existed between 1947 and 1977.
This camp was occupied by single and married men, mostly native-born Australians.”
(Extract from “Australia’s Ever-changing Forests IV Fourth National Conference on Australia’s Forest History Australian Forest History Society Inc Gympie 18 – 22 April 1999 Field Trip to Imbil Tuesday 20 April 1999 Tour Notes Peter V. Holzworth with John Huth”)
“As Imbil was the first area in which commercial plantations were established in Queensland, it was used as a centre for the training of Forest Rangers and Overseers.
In fact E.H.F. Swain recommended in 1917 that a Forestry School be established at Imbil.
The Forest trainees were housed in camps established throughout the forest.
The closest camp to Imbil was near the Forest Station and the furthest camp was 11 km away (about 3 km south of Stirlings Crossing).
Because it was so isolated trainees housed at this camp nicknamed it ‘The Foreign Legion’.
Although it is not clear when this camp was established it is known that it was operational in 1936–37.
With the exception of one married man who lived in a house near this camp, single men at ‘The Foreign Legion’ lived in tents.
The overseer in charge of these men was Mr Jack Donald.
He and his family lived at Butler’s corner and Jack rode a horse to the Foreign Legion’s camp, (Noel Donald – Jack’s son pers comm).
The name ‘The Foreign Legion’ was a ready made name for the European migrants who camped near the same area soon after they arrived at Imbil after the end of World War 2.”
(Extract from “Australia’s Ever-changing Forests IV Fourth National Conference on Australia’s Forest History Australian Forest History Society Inc Gympie 18 – 22 April 1999 Field Trip to Imbil Tuesday 20 April 1999 Tour Notes Peter V. Holzworth with John Huth”)
(Courtesy of Forest Historian John Huth) _________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Mary's Creek"
There is no firm evidence of who Mary’s Creek is named after. A Skyring family story tells that it is named after one of the daughters of Zachariah and Amelia who was born in 1863. It is curious that Mary Louisa Eliza Ann Skyring, who married Ernest William Cross in 1887, had a block of land at the head of Mary’s Creek Rd in 1924. The Skyring family were some of the first settlers in the area of Eel Creek in around 1869
(Courtesy of Beth Wilson, Local History Officer, Gympie Regional Libraries) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________