Bunya

Bunya, a suburb in the Pine Rivers district, is 16 km north-west of central Brisbane. It is bounded on the west by the Samford State Forest Park and on the east by the Bunyaville State Forest Park.

Lying in a valley between the two forest parks, Bunya is crossed by the Bergin and Wongan Creeks, which enter the South Pine River on Bunya's northern edge. Soon after Bunya was settled by farm selections the cemetery site (1873) was reserved and a school (1875-1965) was opened. The Bunyaville Forest Park was reserved for railways timber in 1874, but a railway line was 46 years away, running through Ferny Grove and Samford to Dayboro.

Because of the risk of the name being confused with the Bunya district north-east of Dalby, the local post office was renamed Wongan in 1888. Three years later, however, the old town of Kedron on Kedron Brook was named Bunyaville by the Pine Divisional Board; the area is now known as Everton Park. "Bunyanville" extended into the state forest/timber reserve, hard up against Wongan. In time "Wongan" was displaced by "Bunyaville", and later "Bunya".

The Post Office directory in 1923 recorded a community of farmers (dairy, fruit, general and poultry), along with the school and a Baptist (later Wesleyan) church, 1932-81. The post office closed in 1951, and the loss of that, the church and the school indicates a thinning out of population. Rural/residential subdivisions began in the 1980s, and continued during the subsequent decades as suburbs north and south of Bunya developed. Continuing as a semi-rural enclave, residents' main concerns in 2000 were not to do with traffic congestion so much as fire hazards and roaming cross-bred wild dogs.

Bunya's census populations have been: