Cairns
Cairns (, ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It is on the east coast of Far North Queensland. The city is the 5th-most-populous in Queensland and ranks 14th overall in Australia.
Cairns-to-Kuranda railway line
The search for a rail route continued, with the Railway Department's surveyor, George William Monk, arriving in Cairns in April 1883. Surveys of the various possible routes to Cairns, Port Douglas and Mourilyan were carried out by Monk and other surveyors and in late 1884 Robert Ballard, the Railway Department's Chief Engineer (Central and Northern Railway Division) reported to the Commissioner for Railways the cost would be the same from any of the three rival termini, but Cairns was the better port. The preferred route from Cairns was via the Barron Gorge, although the Mulgrave River had also been considered. The government's decision in favour of Cairns was announced, much to the outrage of Port Douglas residents, on 10 September 1884. The decision to build the railway from Cairns ensured that it became the preeminent town in far north Queensland; yet the Barron Gorge was chosen in ignorance of its unstable geology, which later proved costly in both money and lives.