Cairns’ reputation as Australia’s most popular regional city is very new. In fact, its breath-taking surrounds initially made colonial settlement exceptionally difficult.

Captain James Cook was the first known European to see the future site of Cairns. Exploring the Queensland coast in 1770, he sailed into a swampy inlet, which he named Trinity Bay. Shortly after, his ship lurched onto the Great Barrier Reef and was beached for major repairs. The stranded crew stretched their food supplies with kangaroo meat and, after many attempts, finally navigated the treacherous reef to safe water.

Not surprisingly, the area remained untouched for another 100 years.

In 1872, gold fever in Far North Queensland brought a rush of fortune hunters and tent cities. Cairns was one of these — established at Trinity Bay in 1876 as a port for the Hodgkinson River goldfields.

Surrounded by dense rainforest and mangroves, and with more wharves and sheds than homes, the fledgling town struggled until a railway linked it to the nearby Atherton Tablelands. As sugar cane, fruit and dairies replaced the gold rush, the railway proved to be the town’s salvation, bringing produce, as well as timber and minerals, from outlying areas for shipping.

Cairns was a sleepy port town until the 1980s, when its two World Heritage-listed wonders — the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforests — came to international attention. Combined with unspoiled beaches and a relaxed tropical lifestyle, this thriving city is now Australia’s premier nature-based destination and an adventurer’s playground.