Surat is currently a 3-star Queensland Tidy Town. You can tell us what you think by voting in the poll – you can give a 1-to-5-star rating. History and Geography The local Commissioner of Crown Lands, John Henry Durbin, established a hut at Yamboucal in 1849 and within a month, he was under siege from the Mandandanji. Some reports indicate that to break the siege, Durbin and his troopers shot a large number of Aborigines. Roderick Mitchell, the son of Sir Thomas Mitchell, too