A Recent History of Bingil Bay
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Country surrounding Mission Beach, the Djuru People, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. “Always Was, Always Will Be”
Welcomes and Acknowledgements bring awareness and respect to First Nation people being the custodians of the land upon which we live, prosper, and play. Bingil Bay - and Cutten Street in particular - have quite an interesting history. Although this history is provided in full acknowledgement that the land was colonised by white people for commercial purposes.
Early Days
The name Bingil is believed to be an Aboriginal word meaning a good camping ground given to the area by Frederick Cutten, a pioneer settler in the area.
Did you know that the name ‘Cutten’ comes from the Cutten family (four brothers and four sisters) who settled the hillside where now Cutten Street lies? In 1882, they identified the area's potential for farming, applied for a land grant from the Queensland State Government, and became the area’s first permanent white settlers.
There was a significant cyclone on 2 February of that year that caused significant damage at Cardwell - perhaps it was this event that first brought Bingil Bay to their attention?
Coastal shipping provided a lifeline from Bingil Bay to the settlement at Cardwell, which was visited by coastal traffic passing between Townsville and Cairns. The Cuttens cleared the land and over the next four years planted pineapples, bananas, coffee, tea, coconuts, tropical fruits (especially pineapples and mangoes), and other commercial crops. The produce was picked up by coastal steamers and transported by sea to southern markets. A timber mill was also built to take advantage of the silky oak and red cedar of the area, mainly to build packing crates.
The Cutten family harvesting coconuts, 1917
The loose rocky outcrop at the southern end of Bingil Bay is all that remains of the original jetty used to load freighters with the Cutten Brothers’ produce.
Bingil Bay looking north from Bicton Hill. The original rock jetty is in the foreground.
Toughing It Out
The brothers had not brought about this transformation entirely by their own labour, but had established good relations with the local indigenous population and enlisted their help.
Although working on the land in a stunning tropical location might sound somewhat romantic and idyllic, consider for a moment how tough it actually was. The Cutten family were constantly under siege - from the climate (stifling and inescapable heat and humidity, monsoonal downpours, flash-floods, wind and waves, and the odd cyclone), native fauna (huge snakes, scorpions, spiders, ants, centipedes, beetles and locusts, and fruit bats), flora (the relentless return of the rainforest, mould, mildew, fungus, wait-a-while thorns, and stinging trees) and finally, the isolation (there was no road access, no medical help, and certainly no phone or telegraph communications; the family was absolutely on their own!). And all of this in makeshift, handbuilt dwellings.
Over the coming years, the settlement and estate were battered by a number of cyclones. Then, in March 1918, an enormous cyclone crossed the Far North Queensland coast and caused widespread damage. At Bingil Bay, the cyclone was accompanied by a tidal surge, which devastated the plantation and wiped out the jetty. Virtually nothing remained of the Cutten brothers' farming empire, almost 40 years after it was established. Imagine, for a moment, how devastating it must have been for the family to walk away from their plantation after almost two generations of blood, sweat and tears!
“Around 5pm 10 March at Bingil Bay, a ‘tidal wave’ was seen surging into Bingil Bay from the direction of Dunk Island, taking the bridge over the creek 400m inland. Mission Beach was covered by 3.6m water for hundreds of metres inland, the debris reached a height of 7m in the trees. All buildings and structures were destroyed by the storm surge in the Bingil Bay/Mission Beach area.” - Harden Up Queensland
Incidently, the same 1918 super-cyclone also destroyed the original mission at South Mission Beach (many of the indigenous inhabitants were killed by the surge) only months after another huge cyclone had all but destroyed Mackay.
A Fortunate Coincidence?
The future pioneer of Australian tea, Dr Allan Maruff, migrates to Australia from India in the early 1950s. He settles in the town of Innisfail. The lush, tropical environment reminds him of the tea-growing regions of India and, ass an enthusiastic botanist, Maruff commits to the idea of developing a tea industry in Australia.
Maruff learns of the Cutten Brother's lost plantation and goes on an expedition to find it. Deep in the (now regrown) rainforest, he discovered remnant tea and coffee plants, some thriving as high as 15 metres in the ideal tropical conditions, and collected hundreds of seedlings and seeds from the undergrowth. He returned to Innisfail to start a tea nursery, before later purchasing 130 hectares of land in the Nerada Valley, nestled in the foothills of the Atherton Tablelands. He planted the very first row of tea using the seedlings he collected at Bingil Bay - and the famous Nerada Tea Company was born.
You can read this story on the side of all Nerada Tea boxes, now available in all supermarkets.
From Commercial Settlement to Paradise
Bingil Bay became a noted conservation and holiday area when artist and conservationist John Busst introduced the Prime Minister of the time, Harold Holt, to it. Holt built a holiday house in nearby Holt Court- and it is reported that helicopters would land on the beach when he was in residence, bringing Holt the ‘daily updates’ from Canberra!
Today’s Remnants of the Past
The garden and pool of TreeTops by the Sea
TreeTops by the Sea is now built where the once-mighty plantation stood. If you observe carefully, there are some huge trees surrounding the property. These are the original mango trees as originally planted by the Cutten family! You can see that they are quite battered by various cyclones over the past 100+ years - but they are still standing. And at the right time of the year (November/December), there can still be quite a crop of mangos! It is also suggested that remnants of the original tea plants still remain in local gardens further up the hill.
Did you know? Some of the small pieces of weathered, coloured glass washed up onto Bingil Bay beach today date back to beer bottles dumped off into the ocean off the original jetty?
I hope you enjoyed this little piece about the history of Bingil Bay…
Acknowledgements/References
Centre for the Government of Queensland. 2021. https://queenslandplaces.com.au/bingil-bay
Nerada Tea. 2021. Our history. https://neradatea.com.au/pages/our-history
Pedley, H. 1947. A Brief History of Mission Beach. https://www.cassowarycoast.qld.gov.au/downloads/file/1947/brief-history-of-mission-beach
Wikipedia. 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingil_Bay,_Queensland