There are two roads from Cairns to Cooktown; the coastal route and the inland route. Until 1984, only the latter was in use, there being a “missing link” on the coast road between Cape Tribulation and the Bloomfield River.

For something like sixty years, Far Northerners dreamed of a coast road to Cooktown. Politicians promised it. In October 1984, the gap was finally bridged, and then only by a track negotiable for four-wheel-drives and at a cost of considerable strife between that section of the public concerned for the preservation of the rain forest wilderness and those with an eye to progress and development who deemed such a link was of commercial and strategic importance. Conservationists throughout Australia, and even from overseas, rallied to protest. The road was blockaded in an attempt to stop the work. Over fifty people were arrested. Despite all this, the Douglas Shire Council punched the road through.

Just one of the stories from past times of the Queensland coast from Port Douglas to Cooktown, from pioneers, early settlers, sugar growers, miners, cedar cutters, a very interesting read.