Cardwell

We have never visited the town of Cardwell before. As we are taking a slow point to point journey northwards this year and because Cardwell was devastated by Cyclone Yasi a couple of years ago, we decided that this time we would stay in town and have a look around. We booked into The Beachcomber Caravan Park for one night and found that this was not long enough, we stayed a second night and met some people. Some locals and some holidaying. We are booking in for a third night as that is "State of Origin" night and the park is having a special TV night, of course we will be decked out in 'Maroon'. We plan on saying goodbye to Cardwell on Thursday morning and make our way to Tully a distance of only 43 km.

At the north end of town is the Memorial to The Naval Battle of The Coral Sea in May 1942.

We were on our Aldi Fold up Bikes and as we rode southwards along the beach towards town we could see how much restoration work had been completed to date. The sandy beach had been reinstated and the revegetation was taking hold.

Further south and we were almost in town now, the Cardwell Jetty is in sight with Hinchinbrook Island in the back ground.

We are now at the north end of town and the restoration work is still progressing. Not far from this point the Main Street (The Bruce Highway) is reduced to one lane. The town will look a picture when all the work is completed. Some people are saying another six months should see the town restoration completed.

South of the Jetty the beach is non existent and work is in full swing to completely restore what was blown away in Cyclone Yasi.

Large rocks are trucked in to provide a base, drainage is installed and then truck loads of sand are brought in and overlaid this foundation to complete the repair.

This section of The Bruce Highway is down to one lane only.

We could not access the beach south of The Jetty until this point but it all looked like this. The mangroves here on the foreshore are completely devastated. Beach restoration has commenced here. Port Hinchinbrook is just beyond the next point, visible in the background but we were unable to ride our bikes past this point. The Port area was completely devastated in the cyclone as well but we could not get there to see what work has been done in that area.

Cardwell was the first settlement in North Queensland and was the central point for Government. This is the original Post Office established in 1870. The Post Office has withstood every cyclone that has encroached since that time. Yasi did not even break a window pane in the building.