The image we have today of North Queensland being a tropical
paradise belies the real story of struggle that surrounded its
early development. Old charts suggest the Chinese reached Cape
York Peninsula 3000 years ago. Japanese came in the early 1400s,
Dutch and Spanish in the 1600s and Sulawesi’s Macassans lived
part of the year on the Gulf of Carpentaria 1000 years ago. So,
when England's greatest navigator, James Cook, discovered Terra
Australis in 1770 it wasn't lost, just forgotten. After noting
Cleveland Bay where Townsville is now situated and Magnetical
Isle where his "compass did not traverse it well" in his log
book, whilst heading north up the Australian coast on his way
back to England, he reached an area that was to become Cairns.
Cook named Trinity Bay and Green Island and noted the giant
melaleucas still growing at Palm Cove. Then, passing the
headland he subsequently named Cape Tribulation, where the 100
million year old rainforest touches the coast, his ship, the
Endeavour, struck the north's