Mon Repos

Mon Repos is a coastal locality in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia.

Mon Repos is a coastal locality in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census Mon Repos had a population of 30 people.

Mon Repos is French for "My Rest" and was the name of the homestead built in 1884 by Augustus Purling Barton, a Queensland sugar industry pioneer. Barton also built the Mon Repos sugar-mill in 1884, as a crushing plant, which was converted into a manufacturing plant in 1888. State Library of Queensland hold the Barton Family records which includes information about the Mon Repos homestead and the running of the Barton's sugar mills and plantations. In the 1890s, the governments of France, Queensland and New South Wales decided to construct an undersea telegraph cable to link Australia to North America across the Pacific Ocean via New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. The cable came ashore at Mon Repos, where a cable station was constructed. The cable was used until the 1920s when it was replaced by a radio service via Sydney and the cable station demolished. The cables remained in place under the sea where they were used during World War II by the Royal Australian Navy to train crews in midget submarines operating from HMS Bonaventure to cut cables in preparation to cut undersea telephone cables in Tokyo. Two lieutenants Bruce Enzer and Bruce Carey died during the training. Some remains of the cable station can be seen within the caravan park.Sandhills Provisional School opened on 20 March 1893. On 1 January 1909 it became Sandhills State School. In January 1921 it was renamed Bargara State School.In 1912 pioneer aviator Bert Hinkler launched one of his first home-made gliders on Mon Repos Beach and flew 10 metres (33 ft) above the sand dunes.In the 2016 census Mon Repos had a population of 30 people.