Map - Penola, South Australia (Penola)

Penola (Penola)
Penola is a town in the Australian state of South Australia located about 388 km southeast of the state capital of Adelaide in the wine growing area known as the Coonawarra. At the, town of Penola had a population of 1,312.

It is known as the central location in the life of Mary MacKillop (St. Mary of the Cross), the first Australian to gain Roman Catholic sainthood, in 2010. In 1866 McKillop and a Catholic priest, Julian Tenison-Woods, established a Catholic school in the town.

Penola was on the Mount Gambier to Wolseley railway line which opened in 1887, until its closure to freight on 12 April 1995, and then to Limestone Coast Railway tourist passengers on 1 July 2006.

The Aboriginal Australians living in the area when Europeans arrived were the Bindjali people, although this meaning has also been ascribed to Coonawarra by the same source. A different source reports that the Bindjali expression, pena oorla means "wooden house", which referred to the first pub in the district, the Royal Oak.

The first Europeans to the area were the Austin brothers, who arrived in 1840 and established a run of 109 mi2. The first settlers were Scottish-born Alexander Cameron and his wife Margaret in January 1844 after obtaining an occupation licence. In April 1850, Cameron obtained 80 acres (0.3 km2) of freehold land (his station was on a pastoral lease) and established the private town of "Panoola", later known as Penola.

By 1850, he had built the Royal Oak Hotel and was doing much business supplying liquor to the many travellers passing through to the Victoria goldfields.

Penola Post Office opened around 1852.

Religious services in the town were first conducted in a converted shop, before St Joseph's (Catholic) Church was built in 1859. This was replaced on the same site by a new one designed by Adelaide architect Herbert Jory in Romanesque Revival style and opened in 1924.

John Riddoch purchased Yallum in 1861. Riddoch grew up in poverty in the highlands of Scotland and in 1851 emigrated to try his luck on the Victoria goldfields. Within a few years he was a successful shopkeeper and wine merchant on the Geelong goldfields. He acquired 35,000 acres (142 km2) on which he ran 50,000 head of sheep. It was Riddoch who planted the first grape vines and helped to diversify the pastoral economy of the area with an agricultural industry. In 1890, he established the Penola Fruit Growing Colony which was renamed Coonawarra in 1897.

 
Map - Penola (Penola)
Country - Australia
Flag of Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
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ISO Currency Symbol Significant figures
AUD Australian dollar $ 2
ISO Language
EN English language
Neighbourhood - Country