Goondi
Sugar town north-west of Innisfail on an elbow bend of the South Johnstone River, 'Goondi' is thought to be an Aboriginal word referring to elbow. Farm selections were first taken up at Goondi in 1881 and within a few years Colonial Sugar Refineries built a sugar mill at Goondi, which made its first crushing in 1885. By the turn of the century most cane farms were owned by independent growers. Goondi Mill closed in 1987, after it was taken over by Bundaberg Sugar, despite growers rebelling by refusing to let their cane go to Mourilyan.
Gordonvale
Rural centre on the Mulgrave River on the outskirts of metropolitan Cairns. The area was originally known as Mulgrave, then as Nelson and was renamed Gordonvale in 1913 after John Gordon, a butcher who moved there in the early 1880s. Gordonvale was a reprovisioning point for mule teams carrying goods over the range to Herberton and later became the junction of the Gillies Highway, running across the Atherton Tableland and the Bruce Highway.
The area was first settled in 1877 by the Alley and Blackwell families who cut a road through to Trinity Inlet so they could haul out cedar logs. By 1880, the flow of miners and packers along the road to saw the Riverstone Hotel established to service the passing trade and a small town developed with three pubs, a store and John Gordon's butcher shop.
Grafton
Cape, named by Cook on 9 June 1770. The Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister when Cook sailed.
Grasstree Beach
Coastal township north-east of Sarina, originally part of Cliftonville Station, taken up by Edmund Atherton. In 1865 an ex-Victorian gold miner working on the station discovered a nugget on the property, a discovery kept quiet to avoid the damage a gold rush might bring. In 1886 James Muggleton, a pastoralist and gold fossicker made a further discovery in the foothills of the Grassstree Beach area. By 1889 the Zelma Production Company had been formed and the small township of Zelma, named after the daughter of one of the area's early settlers had developed, with a butcher, grocery store, two hotels, a bakery, police station and school. The school closed in 1896 and was relocated to Alligator Creek. The township wound down in the 1890s, with most residents relocating to Sarina), where the establishment of the Plane Creek Sugar Mill in the mid-1890s offered better business and economic prospects.
Great Barrier Reef
Natural feature along the east coast of Queensland, from the Gulf of Papua to Lady Elliot Island, north-east of Bundaberg, a World Heritage Area of about 2900 unconnected coral reefs, 300 reef islands or sand cays, and continental islands such as the Whitsunday and Lindeman groups. Present-day reefs are about 8500 years old, sitting above layers of reef and alluvium dating back at least 2 million years.
The earliest recorded European contact with the Reef was James Cook whose Endeavour ran aground near Cooktown. Matthew Flinders made a detailed survey of the coast of Queensland and reported (more accurately) on the Barrier Reefs in volume 2 of his Voyage to Terra Australis.
With over 1500 fish species, 400 species of coral and an attractive climate the Barrier Reef has been a major tourist attraction since the 1890s, when Green Island was a pleasure-cruise destination for visitors from Cairns. The island pioneered the use of glass-bottomed boats in the early postwar years and opened an underwater observatory in 1954.
Great Basalt Wall
Geological feature, the last major volcanic activity in northern Australia, part of a 120 km lava flow that includes Red Falls and Echo Hole.
Green
Island, coral cay 27 km offshore from Cairns named by James Cook on 10 June 1770, either because of the appearance of the cay's vegetation, or possibly after Charles Green, who was an astronomer aboard the Endeavour.
Gregory
Downs, taken up in 1865 by Towns and MacDonald.
Isolated settlement on the banks of the Gregory River in the Shire of Burke. The town The town has a hotel, originally built in the 1900s to accommodate travellers using the coach service to Burketown that also served as a post for the mounted police. The town itself is built on the homestead site of the Gregory Downs station, one of the first pastoral properties to be established in the Gulf Country, and was named Gregory Down.. In 2013, the town was changed to Gregory.
River in northwest Queensland, a tributary of the Nicholson, that marks the Southern border of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, established to protect fossils preserved over millions of years. Named by explorer William Landsborough on 19 November 1861, after Augustus Charles Gregory explorer and first Surveyor General of Queensland, the Gregory is one of few rivers in the region that flow all year round thanks to a strong groundwater influence. The Gregory and its wetlands are critical to the health of the Gulf of Carpentaria's seagrass beds and dugong populations with a direct relationship between the river's flows and the quantity of prawns available to the Gulf's fishing industry.
Gulliver
Residential suburb of Townsville previously known as Armstrong’s Paddock, named after Ben Gulliver, nurseryman, who was the proprietor of the Acacia Vale Nursery and Pleasure Gardens, located where the Villa Vincent Home now stands. He also had gardens at Sussex Street, Hyde Park and Stuart.