Ilfracombe - QLD

Looking at the tiny settlement of Ilfracombe, with its one hotel and rather isolated Folk Museum, it is hard to imagine that, in the 1890s, the town had three hotels each with its own dance hall, a soft drink maker, a coach builder, two general stores, a billiard saloon, a dressmaker, three commission agents, a couple of butchers, a baker and a saddler. The story of western Queensland is contained in these changes. Once transportation became efficient the number of people living in the outback declined. What took a month in the 1890s can now take only a few hours.
Located just 27 km east of Longreach, on the Matilda Highway, and 214 m above sea level, Ilfracome currently has a town population of 190. The huge properties which once dominated the area have been broken up into smaller units. Despite the changes of the last century Ilfracombe still survives as a service centre to the surrounding sheep and cattle stations. It possesses such facilities as a swimming pool, a 14-hole golf course, tennis, rugby league, and clay target clubs, a recreation centre, a racecourse, an hotel, a store, a post office, a school and a caravan park.