Kynuna


Kynuna is a town in the Shire of McKinlay and a locality split between the Shire of McKinlay and the Shire of Winton in Queensland, Australia.

Geography

Kynuna is on the banks of the Diamantina River. The town is located on the Landsborough Highway, north west of the state capital, Brisbane and south east of the regional centre of Mount Isa.
Kynuna lies at the northern rim of a roughly circular zone measuring some 130 km across that has been identified by Geoscience Australia as a crustal anomaly. Proof is currently lacking as to the cause, but it is believed likely that the anomaly was caused by an asteroid strike that happened about 300 million years ago.

History

The Wanamara lands ran from the north as far as Kynuna. Wanamarra is an Australian Aboriginal language in North West Queensland. The language region includes areas within the Shire of McKinlay, Shire of Cloncurry and Shire of Richmond, including the Flinders River area, and the towns of Kynuna and Richmond.
The town was established as a shearer's union camp at a supply point for the nearby Kynuna pastoral station, at a place where five roads met the Diamantina River. The town was gazetted in 1894 and at one stage soon after had a population of around 700 people and was home to three pubs.
Local legend claims that the suicide of a local shearer named Samuel Hoffmeister at Combo Waterhole near Kynuna in 1894 was the inspiration for the Banjo Paterson song "Waltzing Matilda". Paterson was at one time engaged to Sarah Riley, the daughter of a local squatter, and visited the area.
Kynuna Post Office opened on 1 May 1883 and closed in 1990.
At the 2006 census, Kynuna had a population of 95.

Amenities

Today, the town has one pub, the Blue Heeler Hotel. The pub was built as the Kynuna Hotel in 1889.