Cardwell    Article        
Unassuming tropical township with access to Hinchinbrook Island.

The Age ~ Article

Located 1533 km north of Brisbane, Cardwell's claim to local fame is that it is the only town on the Bruce Highway between Townsville and Cairns which is on the coast. 

The name of Edmund Kennedy looms large in the history of Cardwell. Kennedy passed close by the present townsite in 1848 during his tragic attempt to travel from Rockingham Bay to Cape York. There is a cairn at the southern end of the town which was built 'To commemorate the centenary of the landing of the explorer Edmund B. C. Kennedy and his party who passed within two miles north of this cairn on June 26 1848 whilst on their fateful journey of exploration to Cape York.'

Searching for a route across to the mountains he originally landed some 35 km north of the present site of Cardwell but encountered dense mangrove swamps which he failed to penetrate. Consequently he was forced south, passing through what is now Edmund Kennedy National Park, 4 km north of Cardwell. His attempt to move west along Meunga Creek at the southern end of the present-day park was successful and allowed the party to proceed north. Consequently, some weeks after they had landed on the coast, they reached the place where they had started - only they were inland not on the coast.

It was not an auspicious beginning to an expedition which was to prove disasterous. Kennedy was subsequently killed by unfriendly Aborigines when only kilometres from the rescue vessel. Only his Aboriginal assistant, Jackie Jackie, was to survive.

It is hard to imagine that it took Kennedy 66 days to cover the distance from Cardwell to Ravenshoe - a journey which can now be done in a few hours. This area is now crossed by the Bruce Highway and a railway line allows 'The Sunlander' to speed across the creeks and swamps every day.

Cardwell was settled in 1864, two years after the HMS Pioneer sailed into the Hinchinbrook Channel looking for a suitable port to service the Valley of Lagoon pastoral holdings on the upper Burdekin River.

In 1863 the explorer George Dalrymple had unsuccessfully attempted to hack a trail from the Valley of Lagoons station. The following year Cardwell was settled, the Old Royal Hotel was built, and Dalrymple did manage to find a track from the coast to the highlands. Thus Cardwell became the first port north of Bowen. It was named by Governor Bowen after the British MP Edward Cardwell.

However, the discovery of gold at Charters Towers drew the maritime trade to Townsville and, by the 1880s, Cardwell's importance as a port for the inland had virtually disappeared. However logging emerged to save the local economy. By 1886 Cardwell boasted the largest sawmill in North Queensland.