cyclones

Farnborough (Iwasaki) resort, surge and flood levels, 1976, sheet 1. This surge and flood level map was completed in March 1976 by engineers Cameron, McNamara & Partners for the design and development of the Iwasaki resort. The map marks the significant places that were already at Farnborough: the ‘hut’ in the southeast corner, the ‘Boys Plains’ and the levee. Abutting the Coral Sea, the map marks the significant water data that were needed for positioning the resort, from south to north: freshwater flood level that reached 2.68 m in 1956, storm tide that hit over two metres in two locations in January 1976, the flood that reached 3.6 m in January 1974, and the sites further north that were affected by the 1976 storm tide. The 1976 water-activity was caused by ‘Cyclone David’ which crossed the Queensland coast south of Mackay in early January 1976 and caused damage to many houses in Yeppoon. As can be seen, in some of the blank spaces of this map contours were not possible to record because the ‘dense vegetation’ was impenetrable for the engineers. Collection of the Queensland State Archives 

Tea-towel: Nerada Tea. The Cutten Brothers established a farm at Bingal Bay in 1882 and began the first tea planting in Australia in 1886. The farm was destroyed by a cyclone in 1918 but Indian born Dr Allan Maruff settled in Cairns in the early 1950s and, discovering the surviving trees and seedlings, purchased 320 acres in the Nerada Valley in 1958. By 1970 the estate was thriving and Dr Maruff utilised mechanical harvesting and formed a partnership with Burns-Philp to establish the first tea-processing factory in Australia. Collection of Glenn Cooke