Cairns - Savannahlander - Cairns to Chillagoe, Undara, Forsayth and Cobbold Gorge weekly

Enjoy the hospitality of the outback pubs on this trip. Meals are not included (except at the Goldfields Hotel in Forsayth, where a light breakfast is included), but great value pub counter ... read more

Cairns

Kuranda

Cairns

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Looking towards Cairns

Trinity Bay was named by Lieutenant James Cook of HM Bark Endeavour on Trinity Sunday in June 1770. On the previous afternoon Cook had named Cape Grafton and Green Island and, accompanied by naturalists Banks and Solander, had gone ashore near False Cape. Pearlers and beche-de-mer fishermen later established isolated camps on the bay, but it was not until 1876 that European occupation began. Cairns, named after the Governor of Queensland, became the port for the newly discovered Hodgkinson Goldfield and for the timber being taken out of the hinterland forests.

The nearby Barron River settlement of Smithfield competed for commercial dominance, but many of its residents had moved to Cairns even before the 1878 flood swept Smithfield away.

By 1878 a track had been cut from the Hodgkinson Goldfield to Island Point and Cairns was soon overshadowed by the new anchorage, later renamed Port Douglas. However, by 1880 the newly discovered Mulgrave Goldfield had brought shipping back to Cairns and in 1884 the settlement was selected ahead of Port Douglas as the terminus for the railway over the Kuranda Range to the Herberton tinfields Its future as the principal port for the region was assured.