Midway between Goondiwindi and Warwick on the Cunningham Highway, you will find Inglewood, sitting on the banks of the serene Macintyre Brook. This friendly country town is blessed with fertile agricultural lands.
Once a significant tobacco growing area, these days the focus is on sheep and cattle grazing, timber milling and the farming of fodder, grains and horticulture crops. While you are in town sample some local produce including olives, high quality honey, organic chicken and beef. Take in the perfume at the award winning Lavender Farm and sample some of the essential oils and other products. You can also tour an olive grove and find out all the process from picking to the finished product. The driver reviver station is located in the popular Lions Park with all facilities and many play activities for the children. Enjoy a walk on the sealed walkways along the riverbank into the recently rejuvenated central business area where you can explore an interesting range of local shops.
The area is renowned for its natural beauty and one of the best ways to explore is on a local tourist drive. Drop into the Visitor Information Centre in Albert Street for maps of the local attractions. If you are visiting in late winter or early spring, you will see and smell the beautiful wildflowers that dot the countryside.
Lake Coolmunda is 12Klms east of Inglewood on the Cunningham Highway with lakeside camping and caravan accommodation. Enjoy fishing, canoeing, sailing or water-skiing on the 1740ha Lake. The waterways are a magnet to a huge variety of birdlife including colourful grass parrots, wrens, raptors, numerous water birds and waders and the rare regent honeyeater. Keep an eye out for the unique Inglewood Wattle and native Cypress. You may even spot a platypus in a quiet stream.
Don’t forget to call in at the Inglewood Heritage Centre and view the Australian Tobacco Museum display including a scaled down replica of a Drying Barn. The Museum also houses written and pictorial records of Inglewood and the surrounding district from settlement.
Spend a few days here and relax, reconnect with nature and enjoy the country lifestyle.
Population: (approximately) 1,100
History:
Allan Cunningham passed through to the east of Inglewood in 1827 on his exploration of inland Queensland. Pastoral holdings established in the mid 1840’s; sheep and cattle were driven overland from the south to stock the holdings.
Cypress pine and hardwood were abundant which provided material for building the community and later became an important industry for the district. In the 1890’s tobacco became a huge economic boost to Inglewood and with a large influx of European migrants (mostly Italian) after WWII the industry flourished.
The Railway reached Inglewood in 1906 establishing important transport links to Brisbane and the Warwick Co-Op Butter Factory supplied the local dairy farmers was built near the rail. The Butter Factory also supplied electricity for the town of Inglewood until the closure in 1960.
Coolmunda Dam was completed in 1968 and the 1,730ha dam provides water for the town of Inglewood and established a variety of irrigated crops in the surrounding district.