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Gympie in Queensland

Located 166 km north of Brisbane and 95 m above sea level, Gympie is one of those strange towns which stretches for kilometre after kilometre over hill and dale to a point where, if you don't take the correct turn off the Bruce Highway, the town centre can be quite hard to locate. In recent times the town centre has been by-passed by the highway which makes the town centre's ribbon development (once it stretched along the Bruce Highway) seem quite strange.

Named after a local stinging tree which the local Aborigines reputedly called 'gimpi gimpi' and briefly called Nashville after James Nash had discovered gold in the area, it officially became Gympie in 1868. At this time all that existed was a mining shanty town with endless tents and numerous small stores and liquor outlets.

The growth of Gympie was remarkable. Within months there were 25 000 people on the goldfields. Within a year a gold battery had been built. It was proclaimed a municipality in 1880, became a town a decade later and was a city by 1905. The railway arrived in 1881 and in 1888 it became one of the few towns in Australia to have its own stock exchange. The gold mining continued until 1925. The city then became the most important regional centre for the area servicing the rich variety of agricultural activities which spread from the coast into the hinterland.

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