Explore Monto

Monto ~ Queensland

Monto is a small rural town 477 kilometres northwest of Brisbane. It was established in 1924 and was the first town in Queensland built to a town plan. It has lovely street art and an interesting history and is the gateway to Cania Gorge National Park.

When we visited Monto, we wandered around the town centre, admired the street art and sculptures, visited the Historical Society, saw the artwork on the 3 Moon Silos and explored Cania Gorge.

The town centre has cafes, traditional hotels, supermarkets, and various shops to browse in. There are also some lovely colourful murals in the laneways and on the buildings.

In Lister Street, you can take a short walk through the park and admire a selection of metal and stone sculptures created by local artists. There is plenty of parking on the street and sheltered picnic tables in the park. 

We then wandered around the Monto Historical and Cultural Centre. We saw a replica of “Betsy,” the World War II Liberator Bomber that crashed near Monto while travelling from Darwin to Brisbane.

There are also historical buildings and memorabilia from Monto’s past.

Six kilometres from Monto is the Three Moon Silo Art. This brightly coloured mural, completed in July 2020 by The Zookeeper and DRAPL, is their interpretation of the legend of the Three Moons.

The Cania Gorge National Park is 33 kilometres from Monto. We stayed at the Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat, a beautiful caravan park in the heart of the National Park. It has cabins, powered and unpowered sites, a camp kitchen, toilets, showers, laundry, and swimming pools. All in a lovely natural bush setting surrounded by ancient sandstone cliff faces.

Every afternoon at the caravan park, you can see king parrots, rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, cockatoos, and galahs at the bird feeding area.

There is also a lovely short walk in the Cania Gorge National Park that starts near the caravan park entrance to see the Big Foot. The Big Foot is an image of a foot with four toes on the sandstone cliffs.

Cania Gorge National Park has towering cliffs, stunning sandstone rock formations and great bush walks.

We went on the Dripping Rock and Overhang walk, which is 3.2 kilometres return and starts at the Three Moon picnic area.  The track meanders through the open bush and crosses the Three Moon Creek.

It then winds through eucalypt woodland and dry rainforest until you reach Dripping Rock.  The track then continues to The Overhang, where centuries of weathering and erosion have eroded the base of the sandstone cliff.