Enjoy the hospitality of the outback pubs on this trip. Meals are not included (except at the Goldfields Hotel in Forsayth,  where a light breakfast is included), but great value pub counter meals ... read more


Mount Surprise | Print |

Approaching Mt Surprise
Approaching Mt Surprise
Ezra Firth took up Mount Surprise sheep run in 1861. Firth converted to cattle after selling his sheep profitably on the new Palmer River Goldfield in 1873. When the Etheridge Railway was built from Almaden to Forsayth in 1910, the Queensland Government resumed a section of the property for Mount Surprise township. In the same year the Junction Creek telegraph office, built in 1871, was moved to the town.

Mount Surprise developed as an important cattle trucking and telegraph centre for the western section of the Tablelands. The town's importance was reduced as railway traffic from the mining and cattle industries declined in the 1930s. Reconditioning of the railway in 1951 and construction of the Gulf Development Road in the 1960s revitalised Mount Surprise as a livestock trucking centre and, more recently, a tourist stop. The Mount Surprise Hotel was one of two erected opposite the railway station about 1910 when Mount Surprise was established as a cattle trucking siding on the new Etheridge Railway.