Cricket was played on Victoria Street in Cardwell in the 1800s.
Until the 1960s horses, cattle, wallabies and curlews strolled the seafront in town in the evenings.
Victoria St 120 years ago
Few trees grew on the beach sand dunes apart from Calophyllums and coconuts. The sea breeze was Cardwell’s air-conditioning.
Victoria Street is today’s Bruce Highway – part of Highway One – which runs along the beachfront in the business centre of Cardwell.
The Marine Hotel, a single storey building then (as seen above) but later with two storeys, is in the same location now, more than a century later.
An unidentified pedestrian stands beside a gas street lamp, while another relaxes against an upright on the hotel verandah.
Bowen Street which runs parallel and one back from the seafront was Cardwell’s main street in the town’s very early years.
Victoria Street remains now where it was then, even after cyclone Yasi, making Cardwell the only town or city where the Bruce Highway runs along the sea front.