Cairns Cannonvale Canoona

Cairns

City, an international gateway to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef looks east to the Coral Sea across Trinity Bay, named by James Cook in 1770 and explored by George Dalrymple, who considered it suitable for settlement in 1873. He was impressed by Trinity Inlet, which he thought would make a good harbour. Trinity Bay was declared a port of entry and clearance in 1876 and named Cairns after the Governor of Queensland, Sir William Cairns.  

For a while, after the proclamation of the Hodgkinson goldfield, Port Douglas and Smithfield, upstream on the Barron River from Cairns, rivalled Cairns, but floods wiped out Smithfield, mineral discoveries on the Tablelands and the Mulgrave River, and the surveying of workable tracks over the range to Cairns harbour, eliminated Port Douglas as a rival. For much of the twentieth century, its economy depended on sugar and farming on the Atherton Tableland, but tourism has become the dominant industry.

City Council formed in 1995 by the amalgamation of a much smaller incarnation of the City Council and Mulgrave Shire, which had picked up residential overspill from Cairns in the former sugar towns of Edmonton and Gordonvale. 

Electorate created by the Electoral Districts Act of 1887 as a single member constituency centred on the city of Cairns. With population growth the city has had parts included in other electorates such as Barron River (1971).

Regional Council formed in 2008 by amalgamating Cairns City and Douglas Shire, with a southern boundary near Babinda. stretching beyond Cape Tribulation and extending inland as far as the crest of the coastal range. Predictably, the population is concentrated around Cairns, on the coastal sugar-growing plains and the foothills of the range. In March 2013 more than 57% of voters in the former Douglas Shire opted for de-amalgamation and a separate Douglas Shire Council will be in place from 1 January 2014.

Cannonvale

Coastal town immediately west of Airlie Beach which derives its name from Commander George Nares who conducted a maritime survey of the Whitsunday islands in 1864-67 and named a valley on the coast after his assistant ship's surgeon, Richard Cannon. The area was originally known as Cannon Valley. The town was gazetted in 1913, and between 1938-58 three jetties were used for cruises to the Whitsunday Islands, discarded in turn after cyclone damage. As Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour grew Cannonvale became a dormitory suburb and commercial centre for the Whitsundays. 

Canobie

Gulf country cattle run taken up in 1864 by Edward Palmer and Shewring about 143 kilometres north of Cloncurry and 198 kilometres south west of Croydon. The station takes its name from a corruption of the traditional owners' name of the locale: Conobie. Palmer, originally from Wollongong, stocked the property with cattle and sheep, with the first wool taken to Cloncurry in 1865. Palmer's partner died of gulf fever in the first year and the station was drought stricken for the first few years then flooded in 1869–1870. In the 1880s, a new partner, Stephenson, bought into Canobie with Palmer, and the area was severely flooded in 1891 with surrounding properties recorded water levels as rising over four metres, causing widespread destruction and the loss of hundreds of stock. In 1895, the station homestead was burnt to the ground and the property was sold in 1908 to A.J. Cotton along with all of its stock in 1908. In the 1970s, the shorthorn herd was replaced with the better suited Brahman cattle, which thrived in the tropical conditions. AACo acquired Canobie in 1985 along with neighbouring Alcala station and the two were combined, forming a single operation. In 1990, Lyrin Downs, on the eastern boundary, was added to the conglomerate.

Canoona

Site of the first north Australian gold rush, 40 km north-west of Rockhampton on the Canoona pastoral run. The discovery in July or August 1858 provoked a rush, attracting some 15,000 people between September and December 1858 but the field could not sustain such a large population of anything like that number. Its chief benefit was to bring population to the region, peopling the infant town of Rockhampton and killing off Gladstone's prospects as the regional capital.

© Ian Hughes 2013