Bellbowrie, a residential suburb, is 18 km south-west of central Brisbane. Formerly part of Moggill, it includes the Moggill cemetery. The Moggill primary school is immediately outside its southern border.

Bellbowrie began as a 2000-lot housing estate, and its name was derived from an Aboriginal expression thought to describe a place of flowering gums. The suburb was named at a ceremony conducted by the Lord Mayor at the Bellbowrie shopping plaza in 1973.

At that time the new suburb was a metropolitan satellite between rural Pullenvale and the old town of Moggill, but it was linked to Brisbane by Moggill Road and to Ipswich by the Moggill Ferry. In the 1970s Bellbowrie was hailed as ‘Brisbane goes into the bush’, with 12% of the suburb reserved for open space, all house lots being bigger than a quarter acre, enhancement of the park-like vistas by having no fences, and undergrounding of power conduits. An eventual population of 10-12,000 was predicted.

Bellbowrie’s satellite status was still apparent in the early 2000s. East of the shopping plaza there are a swim centre and outdoor playing fields, but the Moggill Country Club (1960s) on Bellbowrie’s most easterly point overlooking the Brisbane River was earmarked as a development site by 2007.

FLOODS 2011

Bellbowrie’s vulnerable flood point is along its recreation ground. Flooding was repeated there in January 2011, advancing across the sports fields into Bellbowrie Plaza. The old Moggill cemetery was high and dry, proving that the pioneers chose wisely.