Ninety minutes south of Cairns, where the North and South Johnstone Rivers meet, sits a sugar town that most visitors drive straight through on the way to Mission Beach. That is a mistake, because Innisfail has something almost no other Australian town of its size can claim: an intact art deco town centre, built in one go, in one style, and largely still standing.
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Why Innisfail looks the way it does
In March 1918 a severe cyclone and storm surge tore through Innisfail, then known as Geraldton, and flattened much of it. The town was rebuilt through the 1920s and 1930s, which happened to be the exact window when art deco was the style of the day.
The result is a town centre with an unusual coherence to it. Instead of the century of mismatched additions most Australian towns accumulate, Innisfail got rebuilt in a single architectural moment: stepped parapets, curved corners, geometric detailing, the lot. What makes it specifically tropical deco rather than the Miami or Melbourne version is the adaptation to the climate, with deep awnings and shade built into the geometry.
The Johnstone Shire Hall on Rankin Street is the headline act, and worth stepping inside for the foyer alone. Beyond that, the pleasure is cumulative rather than monumental. Park in the centre, walk the main commercial streets, and look above the awnings, because that is where the original detail survives above the modern shopfront signage.
We have written this up in more detail, including the annual festival, in Innisfail is an art deco town, and almost nobody tells you.
The Italian thing
The other layer to Innisfail is Italian. The cane industry drew large numbers of Italian migrants from the early twentieth century, and the town has carried that influence ever since, in the surnames, the food and the social clubs. It is part of why the place feels different to the other sugar towns along this stretch of coast.
Things to do in and around Innisfail
Innisfail works best as a base or a stop rather than a destination in itself, because the good stuff is scattered around it.
- The art deco town walk. Free, self-guided, an hour on foot. The Innisfail and District Historical Society runs guided versions during the annual Tropical Art Deco Festival in September.
- Mamu Tropical Skywalk. An elevated walkway through the rainforest canopy on the Palmerston Highway west of town, with a tower you can climb for views over the North Johnstone gorge. Open daily, but check current hours before you drive out, we have seen them quoted several different ways.
- Paronella Park. At Mena Creek, about half an hour south west. A Spanish castle built by a Catalan migrant in the 1930s, now a ruin in the rainforest, and one of the genuinely strange and lovely things in Far North Queensland.
- Australian Sugar Industry Museum. At Mourilyan on the Bruce Highway just south of Innisfail, part of the Australian Sugar Heritage Centre, which also houses the Cassowary Coast Region Art Gallery and a cafe. If you have driven past a thousand hectares of cane wondering how any of it works, this answers it.
- Etty Bay. A small beach in a pocket of rainforest about fifteen minutes east. It is one of the more reliable places in the region to see a southern cassowary, which sometimes wander onto the sand. Do not feed them, do not approach them, and give them room.
- Warrina Lakes. A parkland on the edge of town, good for a walk and a break from the highway.
Getting there
Innisfail is about 90 kilometres south of Cairns on the Bruce Highway, which is roughly an hour and twenty minutes of straightforward driving. There is no reason to rush it, because Babinda and Josephine Falls are both on the way and both worth a stop.
Long distance coaches and the Brisbane to Cairns rail service both stop at Innisfail, but to see the surrounding area properly you want a car.
When to go
This is one of the wettest parts of Australia. The wet season, roughly December to March, is genuinely wet here, and the region has taken the full force of more than one cyclone, including Cyclone Larry in March 2006.
The dry season, May to October, is the comfortable window and the one the festival sits in. That said, rain suits the rainforest attractions, and Mamu in the mist is arguably better than Mamu in the sun.
A sensible day trip from Cairns
The stack that works: leave Cairns mid-morning, stop at Babinda or Josephine Falls for a swim, reach Innisfail for lunch and the art deco walk, then either Paronella Park or Mamu on the way home. That is a full day and a good one.
Before you swim anywhere along the way, read our guide to swimming safely in Cairns and Far North Queensland. The creeks down here are beautiful and some of them are dangerous, and the difference is not obvious from the car park.
Nearby
More on this stretch of coast and hinterland in our Cairns south guide, and see the Cassowary Art Trail if you are collecting the region’s painted birds on the way through.
Header photo: Chris Olszewski via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
