Garbutt
Industrial and residential suburb of Townsville. The Garbutt family had an abbatoir and associated activities next to the railway line running north to Ingham.
Georgetown
Former mining town south-west of Innisfail, originally known as Etheridge and the administrative centre of Etheridge Shire. Originally an alluvial gold mining centre on the Etheridge River, the township was named Georgetown in honour of the local gold commissioner, Howard St George. There were up to 3000 prospectors on the field at its peak but most were drawn away to more promising fields on the Palmer River and the Hodgkinson.
By 1880 the original wood and canvas buildings were wearing out. White-ant proof iron and hardwood structures replaced them, Mineral lodes paid well enough to offset costs caused by lack of water and distance, and provided enough return to keep miners employed. By the early 1900s mining was reported as being depressed, with cyanide processing of tailings giving the best results.
Gilbert
River towards the base of Cape York Peninsula, lying between the Flinders River and the Mitchell River, that combines with the Einasleigh to form one of the largest river systems in northern Australia. Both streams rise in uplands to the west of the Atherton Tableland, their sources very close to each other, but diverge as they flow west, the Gilbert anticlockwise and the Einasleigh clockwise. Eventually they join east of Normanton and flow in a west-northwesterly direction to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The only major tributary is the Etheridge which joins the main stems at a point very close to their convergence, with the three producing a vast estuarine delta that largely across tidal flats and mangrove swamps during the "wet" season.
Giru
Rural town in the Burdekin Shire, midway between Townsville and Ayr. The town was either named after the Goru sugar cane variety or derived from an Aboriginal word describing a place covered with watercourses or lagoons. Sugar cane was first harvested in the area in 1906 and while sugar production was patchy in 1920 the local Farmers Association bought an under-utilised mill from Bundaberg and had it reassembled at Giru. The population climbed towards the 600s in the 1950s. The Burdekin Dam provided extra water for irrigation in the mid-1980s, supplementing supplies from Horseshoe Lagoon and underground aquifers. Irrigation guaranteed a reliable supply of additional cane, and CSR expanded the Invicta mill, making it the largest in the region. A downturn in the sugar market led to diversification into small crops, mangos and beef.
Glenella
Outer suburb of Mackay on the Bruce Highway six km from the city centre. In the 1970s, as Mt Pleasant was urbanised, housing appeared in Glenella and 1980 the population touched 1000, doubling in the following decade.
Gloucester
Cape, a lofty promontory named by Cook after William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, a younger brother of George III on 4 June 1770 and subsequently found to be the northern tip of an island.
Golden Gate
Former gold-mining town six kilometres north-west of Croydon on the road to Normanton. It was one of several mining centres around Croydon and the locality boomed after the Croydon to Normanton railway provided a station at Golden Gate, the site of the deepest, longest lived and most productive mines of the field. In common with most of the Croydon gold field, mining was from reefs, and cyaniding was later used. A mineral extraction works operated 1988-92. The Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex is State Heritage Registered and the place contains extensive social archaeological evidence for future research.
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