Biloela  Queensland

Biloela is the administrative centre of the Banana Shire in the fertile Callide Valley...and thereby hangs a tale. For, while the valley produces bountiful harvests of lucerne, cotton and sunflowers, there’s nary a banana to be seen.

As it happens, the shire was named for Banana, a dun-coloured bullock which toiled for many a year in the paddocks of a local property in the mid-1800s.

Located at the junction of the Dawson and Burnett Highways, Biloela (which means white cockatoo in the local Aboriginal language) is a convenient and colourful staging post.

The local points of interest include the Silo-in-the-City, which made its debut at Expo 88 and Mt Scoria Environment Park, which preserves an area renowned for its singing rocks with the music provided by nature's xylophones, basalt columns.

Biloela's House of Dolls boasts an amazing collection of dolls and bonsai trees, while Greycliffe Homestead has been listed by the National Trust as an outstanding example of a colonial, timber-slab cottage.