Port Douglas
Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas
Port Douglas is one of north Queensland's most popular
holiday destinations, offering something for everyone; from the World
Heritage listed Cape Tribulation and Great Barrier Reef, to beach, shopping,
bars and restaurants. Add to this the proximity to Cairns airport and
the long stretch of magnificent Four Mile Beach and glorious north Queensland
climate, average temperatures range from 25 to 29C in the winter and
29-33C in the summer.
Port Douglas is located about 70km. north of Cairns and
its international airport, so it takes only one hour to reach along
a spectacular scenic coastal drive, folowed by an impressive entrance
into Port Douglas along a road lined by thousands of oil palms. The
town caters for all types of people, from families to fishermen to the
rich and famous, and even Bill Clinton has spent a couple of holidays
here at the Sheraton
Mirage, the town received another free worldwide promotion boost
when a (false) rumour went around on the internet that Monica Lewinsky
had also been spotted cruising around Port Douglas. Visitors to this
place mainly keep themselves busy with shopping, eating, relaxing on
Four Mile Beach, and trips out to the Great Barrier Reef and up to Cape
Tribulation.
The first European settlement in the area was kicked
off by Christie Palmerstonin 1877 when he cut the infamous Bump Track
through the rainforest from the goldfields down to the coast. The town
boomed immediately as it was now the main shipping port for the inland
goldfields and in to time at all the town had over 50 pubs and even
had a bigger population than Cairns for a while. But as usually happens
with booming gold rush towns, the gold started running out around 1886
and the town reduced in size, and it went through several names like
Island Point, Terrigal, Port Owen and Salisbury, until it was finally
named after John Douglas, a Queensland Premier in the 1870s. Most of
the locals now simply refer to it as 'Port'. In 1911 the town got hammered
by a cyclone that destroyed much of it, though some good historical
buildings still remain nowadays. The port remained important as this
was where all the sugar from the district was shipped out from, sugar
is still, after tourism, the biggest economy in this shire, as you will
be able to tell from the vast canefields next to the roads. Unfortunately
world prices for sugar are low, and the mill in Mossman, that crushes
the sugarcane to extract the sugar, has been basically bankrupt for
years, but to avoid half the shire losing their job banks and governments
keep putting more money into it.
Since the passing of the goldrush Port Douglas remained
a sleepy fishing village surrounded by sugar cane fields, until in the
1980s Christopher Skase set his sights on the town.
The television station owner and manager of the Qintex Group ran a booming
empire at the time, and transformed the sleepy town forever when he
built the Sheraton hotel that kicked off the building boom. Things turned
sour however and after a bit of trouble with the bank he ended up skipping
the country leaving over a billion dollars in debts behind. The Australian
government tried to get him extradited from Spain but at every court
appearance Skase arrived in a wheel chair breathing from an oxygen mask
and managed to convince the Spanish judge that he was too sick to fly
home. The Australian government then offered to arrange passage on a
ship but he was too sick for this too. Alan Bond ( another famous character
who had built an empire that left millions of dollars in debts) publicly
called on Skase to come home and do his time in jail like he had done.
In the end Skase ended up dying in Spain without ever having returned
to Australia to face the music. The whole scenario inspired the movie
'Let's get Skase' which told the story of frustrated creditors hiring
a bounty hunter to kidnap Skase and transport him back to Australia.
The movie was like a combination of 'Stripes' and James Bond, it did
not win any Oscars or other prizes and became somewhat irrelevant when
Skase actually died before the movie was released.
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