Mission Beach is a coastal town and

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

in the Cassowary Coast Region,

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. In the , the locality of Mission Beach had a population of 1,014 people.

Geography

Mission Beach is bounded on the east by the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

. Clump Point () is the northern end of a sandy beach long facing the

which runs south to Tam O'Shanter Point in South Mission Beach at the southern end.

History

Djiru

The region has been inhabited for at least the past 5,000 years by a rainforest dwelling people collectively known as the Djiru people. Remains of middens, fish traps, rock-shelter paintings and ceremonial sites are located around Mission Beach and Dunk Island. Djiru people made large wooden swords and built wet-season villages consisting of dome-shaped huts thatched with palm fronds and paperbark.

British exploration

Lieutenant

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

sailed through the area in 1770, naming Dunk Island. Clump Point was descriptively named in 1848 by Captain Owen Stanley of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

survey ship HMS ''Rattlesnake''. On board was the

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

exploration party led by

Edmund Kennedy Edmund Besley Court Kennedy J. P. (5 September 1818 – December 1848) was an explorer in Australia in the mid-19th century. He was the Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales, working with Thomas Mitchell (explorer), Sir Thomas Mitchell. Kenned ...

which was landed to the south of the region to begin their ill-fated overland journey. After the disembarkation of Kennedy's group, Captain Stanley anchored off Dunk Island and he and his crew remained in the vicinity for ten days. They traded with the local Djiru people until a crew member shot at them after being prevented from entering a nearby village.

The shipwreck of the ''Maria''

On 26 February 1872, the brig ''Maria'' carrying 75 people of a gold prospecting expedition to

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

was wrecked upon Bramble Reef. The survivors escaped the sinking ship on 3 boats and 2 rafts. Two of the boats made it safely to the nearest British settlement of Cardwell, but the other three craft were washed up on the shoreline at and around what is now Mission Beach. Up to ten of these crew members, including the captain, were found to have been murdered by Aboriginal people residing in this region. Lieutenant Sabben of the

was sent to recover the captain's boat and find any survivors. Upon reaching the beached boat they were attacked by about 120 Aboriginal men. In resisting the attack, 8 native people were killed. Fearing further attacks, Magistrate Brinsley Sheridan, ordered Sub-Inspector Robert Arthur Johnstone of the

Native Police Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal troopers under the command of European officers appointed by British colonial governments. The units existed in va ...

"to inflict decisive punishment". Johnstone and his troopers were significantly aided by another Royal Navy officer in Captain John Moresby who provided additional armed marines and a large

schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...

. Moresby described how "several unfortunate blacks were shot down by the native troopers, who showed an unrestrained ferocity that disgusted our officers". A six-year-old boy was taken during this raid and sent to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

by the "kind act" of Lieutenant Francis Hayter. The boy died there from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

three years later. Johnstone and his troopers, together with armed sailors and volunteer riflemen, scoured the coast from Cardwell north to Cooper Point, searching every Aboriginal camp they came across for any traces of the men. Newspapers reported that Johnstone's detachment of

killed a total of 93 local Aboriginal people in the ''Maria'' reprisals. Accusations of Johnstone and others having "punished the innocent together with the guilty" and partaking in "slaughtering whole camps, not only of men, but of women and children" even reached the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Robert Herbert Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert, (12 June 1831 – 6 May 1905), was the first Premiers of Queensland, Premier of Queensland, Australia. At 28 years and 181 days of age, he was the youngest person ever to become premier of an Australian state ...

. The claims were dismissed by Lord Normanby, Governor of Queensland, on the grounds that the Aboriginal people of the north "are numerous, savage, treacherous, and very commonly cannibals". Various localities around Mission Beach were named after entities and events involved in the shipwreck of the ''Maria'' including Maria Creek and the Johnstone River.

British settlement

Up until the late 1870s, the area was still considered too dangerous for British settlement and the Djiru were able to maintain their traditional livelihood in a landscape that had the "appearance of some wealthy nobleman's estate." Charles Freshney's logging company started to cut down the groves of cedar trees around Clump Point from 1880. They employed Aboriginal people for timber hauling, paying them with tobacco and tools. The first white settlers to establish a landholding in the region were the Cutten brothers (Herbert, Leonard, James and Sidney), who took up their selections in 1886. They built a homestead which they called Bicton (now Bingil Bay), and farmed

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree '' Mangifera indica''. It originated from the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South and Southeast As ...

es, bananas,

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a Tropical vegetation, tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been culti ...

s, coffee, citrus fruit and

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

s. By 1890, the Cutten brothers were not able to support the remaining Djiru living on what was now their property. The Cuttens threatened to exterminate the Djiru and burnt down their main camp, but kept around 40 people to labour on their plantations. Initially these workers were indentured on government wages but by 1910 the Cuttens were accused of paying their remaining Djiru labourers with rum. The Cuttens starting selling out of the area in 1918 after a cyclone destroyed their plantations. After the Cutten brothers, the Unsworths settled at Narragon Beach, the Garners came and settled at Garners Beach, and the Porter brothers settled at what the locals refer to as Porter's Creek (also called Wongaling Creek) at the south end of North Mission Beach.

Hull River Aboriginal Settlement

In the early 20th century

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

banana farmers used

Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

as labourers in the Tully River region.

Opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

addiction and conflict with British settlers resulted in the

government creating an Aboriginal internment centre, the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement, at the present South Mission Beach. John Martin Kenny was appointed superintendent in September 1914. There was no mission in the religious sense; the settlement had characteristics of a

penal settlement A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer t ...

. Forced removals from other regions swelled the population to around 500 by 1916. Many ran away and about 200 people died there in 1917 during an epidemic. On 10 March 1918, a category 5 cyclone hit the Innisfail area, killing at least 100 people in the region. A storm surge in the Mission Beach area swept hundreds of metres inland leaving debris 7m up in some trees. This cyclone destroyed the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement, killing the superintendent Kenny, his daughter and other residents. The surviving residents were forcibly moved to a new settlement on

Great Palm Island Great Palm Island, usually known as Palm Island, is the largest island in the Palm Island, Queensland, Palm Islands group off North Queensland, Northern Queensland, Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal Australian, Aboriginal community, the ...

Development of the town

In the late 1920s after the construction of a road from

El Arish ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh ( ' ) is the capital and largest city of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast northeast of Cairo and west of the Egypt–Gaza border ...

, the area became a popular camping place. It was known as Mission Beach due to the mistaken belief that the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement previously located in the region was a religious mission. Mission Beach developed into a town during the 1940s and 50s with the Mission Beach Post Office opening on 15 December 1949. Mission Beach State School opened on 27 January 1953 in the "tropical jungle" of Mission Beach. On 1 February 1993, the school re-opened at a new site in Wongaling Beach to the south. On 20 March 2006,

Cyclone Larry Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry was a tropical cyclone that made landfall in Australia during the 2005–06 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season. Larry originated as a low pressure system over the eastern Coral Sea on 16 March 2006, and ...

crossed the coast in between Mission Beach and Innisfail. In addition to structural damage to property,

also had a tremendous impact on the

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

and animals of the region. A shortage of rainforest fruit saw

cassowaries Cassowaries (; Biak language, Biak: ''man suar'' ; ; Papuan_languages, Papuan: ''kasu weri'' ) are flightless birds of the genus ''Casuarius'', in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites, flightless birds without a keel (bird a ...

seeking food in built up areas and, unfortunately, a number were hit and killed by cars. On 3 February 2011, the

eyewall The eye is a region of mostly calm weather at the center of a tropical cyclone. The eye of a storm is a roughly circular area, typically in diameter. It is surrounded by the eyewall, a ring of towering thunderstorms where the most severe weath ...

of Severe Tropical

Cyclone Yasi Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi () was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that made landfall in northern Queensland, Australia in early 2011, causing major damage to the affected areas. Originating as a tropical low near Fiji on 26 Janu ...

crossed the coast near Mission Beach. Wind gusts estimated up to , leaving behind significant damage. A

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

estimated to have reached destroyed several structures along the coast and pushed up to inland. Most of the beach had lost its sand and all of the towns structures were damaged to some degree, with many houses completely destroyed. There were no reports of fatalities or injuries in Mission Beach. In 2019, Mayfair 101, an Australian-based investment consortium, bought 200 properties in Mission Beach as well as nearby Dunk Island with the view to transform the area into a "tourism mecca". By August 2020, Dunk Island had been repossessed by the former owners, and investigations by the

Australian Securities and Investments Commission The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent commission of the Australian Government tasked as the national corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to regulate company and financial services and enforce laws to pro ...

led to the freezing of assets of 14 property trusts Mayfair 101 had used to buy land in and around Mission Beach.

Demographics

In the , the locality of Mission Beach had a population of 815 people. In the , the locality of Mission Beach had a population of 1,014 people.

Economy

The Mission Beach area also supports a sizeable agricultural industry, particularly the cultivation of

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

Education

There are no schools in Mission Beach. The nearest government primary school is Mission Beach State School in Webb Road, Wongaling Beach. The nearest government secondary school is Tully State High School in Tully to the south-west.

Amenities

Mission Beach Uniting Church is at 2224 Tully Mission Beach Road (). It is part of the Cassowary Coast Uniting Church. The Mission Beach Barracudas

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club fields teams that play in the local Johnstone River Football Association league.

Events

In September, Mission Beach hosts the annual Cassowary Festival. This festival was created to promote the unique wildlife of the region and to celebrate the community through music, activities and education. The town also formerly celebrated the annual aquatic festival, it has since been discontinued since 2017.

Tourism

The beach is flanked by green mountains rising just a short distance inland, and provides views out to the

Family Islands Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

. Close to shore at Mission Beach lies a shallow reef; during very low tides portions of this reef are exposed. The reef runs from the mouth of Porter's Creek at the south end of North Mission Beach almost to Clump Point, and is a popular fishing spot. Surrounded by

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

on one side and the

listed

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

on the other, Mission Beach is home to many wildlife species, most notable is the

cassowary Cassowaries (; Biak: ''man suar'' ; ; Papuan: ''kasu weri'' ) are flightless birds of the genus ''Casuarius'', in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites, flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bones. Cassowaries a ...

. This large flightless bird can be found in the

surrounding the area but appears to be thriving in spite of land clearing, traffic and predators such as wild dogs and feral pigs. Much of the area is part of the

Coastal Wet Tropics Important Bird Area The Coastal Wet Tropics Important Bird Area comprises a disjunct 521 km2 stretch of coastal and subcoastal land in tropical Far North Queensland, Australia. It extends from just south of Cairns in the north for about 150 km to Card ...

, identified as such by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because of its importance for the conservation of lowland

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

birds.BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Coastal Wet Tropics. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 16 December 2011. Mission Beach is also the mainland gateway to Dunk Island, with water-taxis shuttling day-trippers out to the island.

In popular culture

* In Episode 7, Season One of '' The Real Housewives of Melbourne'', the Housewives stayed at a five-star resort in Mission Beach. * Series 2 and 3 of ''

Escape from Scorpion Island ''Escape from Scorpion Island'' is a British-Australian children's TV adventure game show in which contestants try to 'escape from an exotic island with a mind of its own' by doing various challenges to improve their chances of escaping. Series ...

'' was filmed at Mission Beach. * The Australian television series ''

Sea Patrol ''Sea Patrol'' is an Australian television drama that ran from 2007 to 2011, set on board HMAS ''Hammersley'', a fictional patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The series focused on the ship and the lives of its crew members. Despi ...

'' has filmed five of its series in the waters off the Mission Beach area. *The 2022 Netflix series ''

Irreverent ''Irreverent'' is an Australian drama television miniseries that was released on 30 November 2022 on Peacock in the United States and on 4 December 2022 on Netflix in Australia and New Zealand. ''Irreverent'' follows the story of an American cr ...

'' was filmed in and around Mission Beach and its church.

References

External links

* * Archived website by Helen Pedley.
University of Queensland: Queensland Places: Mission Beach
{{authority control Populated places in Far North Queensland Populated places established in 1914 Cassowary Coast Region 1914 establishments in Australia Coastline of Queensland Localities in Queensland