Dajarra
Postcode: 4825
Dajarra is a town in the far north-west of Outback Queensland, Australia, near the border with the Northern Territory. It is about 150 km south of Mount Isa on the Diamantina Developmental Road.
Dajarra once had importance as a railhead for the cattle industry, the railway giving connection to the ports and markets of the east coast of Australia. But the advent of the multi-trailer road trains has made this part of a bygone era.
More recently, some opportunities for local employment have come with the development of the nearby Phosphate Hill fertiliser mines. The mining company has assisted the community in developing a better water supply for the town.
Once the largest trucking depot in the world, Dajarra is now a quiet, laid back town in the far north of Outback Queensland. The older people of the area who remember Dajarra’s heyday say that the area trucked more cattle than Texas in the United States of America. Drovers would bring cattle from as far away as Western Australia to put them on the train at Dajarra. Then came the road trains and soon the railway was turned into just a memory.
The town also has a rich aboriginal heritage and is home to aboriginal tribes from around the Diamantina River, the Gulf and the Northern Territory. The old culture is upheld here. The aboriginal language is taught at the school by a couple of elders and one local elder shows the children how to make boomerangs, what wood to use and what timber is best for didgeridoos. They still know where to find the bush foods and the ‘bush lollies’ on the gidyea trees after rain, berries, wild oranges at Christmas and wild bananas on the road to Mount Isa.