TULLY, QUEENSLAND

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A sugar town which receives the highest rainfall of any town in Australia (it has an annual average rainfall of 4.27 metres and holds the record for the highest annual rainfall in a populated area of Australia, with 7.9 metres in 1950). Tully is situated at the foot of Mt. Tyson.
Location: 1,557 km north of Brisbane on the Bruce Highway
Origin of Name: in 1872 the river running through the area was named after William Alcock Tully, the Under-Secretary for Public Lands and Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands in Queensland at the time. Originally known as Banyan, the town was surveyed in 1883.
Brief History: the Tully area was first settled in the early 1870s when James Tyson's nephews tried to grow sugar as well as raise cattle. It was not until 1924, when the government decided to build a sugar mill in the area, that the settlement began to grow. The mill was completed in 1925 the same year that the town was formally gazetted. At the time it was the largest mill in Australia. In 1935 the Tully River was dammed for hydro-electricity and it is now a major supplier of electricity for both Cairns and Townsville.
Built features: localities of Silky Oak, Lower Tully, Euramo
Natural features: Tully River; Tully Falls; Tully Heads; Hull Heads; Mission Beach; Clump Point; Bingil Bay; Kareeya Gorge; Murray Falls; Mt. Tyson; Tully Gorge Alock State Forest; Hull River National Park; Hull River Wetlands Orchid Forest
Built features: Cardstone Village; Cardstone Weir (40 km); Golden Gumboot; Tully Sugar Mill