Emu Park is a small town on the Capricorn Coast located 21 kilometres south of Yeppoon in Queensland, Australia. It is within the local government area of Shire of Livingstone (between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Rockhampton Region). At the 2011 census, Emu Park had a population of 2,021.
Home of the famous Singing Ship Monument, the Emu Park land area was first discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770. It overlooks the islands of Keppel Bay, including the Great Keppel Island. Emu Park is a popular tourist spot, and has won several tourism awards, and features fishing, surfing, boating, and unspoiled beaches.
History
Emu Park's European history dates to the 1860s when the Jardine family established a cattle grazing property south of the current town, at Zilzie, an anagram of Lizzie Jardine.
Emu Park township was established in the 1870s when several Rockhampton families built seaside holiday houses on the hills overlooking the two beaches that are a feature of the town - Fisherman's Beach and Pine Beach. Emu Park was connected to Rockhampton by train in 1888 and became a popular, but fairly select, seaside resort from that time on. A branch to Yeppoon, further to the north was opened in 1910.
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