|
Surfers' Paradise (28°00'S
153°25'E) is a beach resort town
on Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland,
noted for its many high-rise hotels
and apartment buildings. The central
feature of the Surfers Paradise CBD
is Cavill Mall, which runs through the
centre of the main shopping precinct,
directly to the beach. The record-breaking
Q1 residential tower is situated on
Clifford Street in Surfers Paradise.
James Beattie, a farmer
(and no relation to current Queensland
Premier Peter Beattie) became the first
European to settle in the Surfers' Paradise
area when he staked out an 80 acre farm
on the northern bank of the Nerang River,
close to the location of present-day
Cavill Avenue. The farm proved unsuccessful
and was sold in 1877 to German immigrant
Johann Meyer, who turned the land into
a sugar farm and mill. Meyer also had
little luck growing in the sandy soil
and within a decade had auctioned off
the farm and started a private ferry
service and built the Main Beach hotel
as tourist attractions. By 1889 Meyer's
hotel had become an official postal
receiving office and the subdivisions
surrounding it were given the name Elston,
named by the Southport Postmaster Mr
Palmer after his wife's home village
in Nottingham, England. The Main Beach
Hotel licence lapsed after Meyer's death
in 1901 and for the next 16 years Elston
was a tourist town without a hotel or
post office.
In 1917 a land auction
was held by Brisbane real estate company
Arthur Blackwood Ltd, who were trying
to sell subdivided blocks in Elston
as the 'Surfers' Paradise Estate', but
the auction failed because access to
the area was still too difficult. This
was the first recorded reference to
the Surfers Paradise name, but like
the Gold Coast, the title may well have
been part of local vernacular prior
to the land auction.
Elston began to get considerably
more visitors after the opening of the
Jubilee Bridge in 1925 and the extension
of the South Coast Road; the area was
serviced until that time only by Meyer's
Ferry at the Nerang River. Suddenly,
Elston was no longer cut off by the
river and speculators began buying up
land around the villages of Elston,
and Burleigh Heads. Estates down the
coast were heavily promoted and hotels
began opening to accommodate both tourists
and investors.
Brisbane hotelier Jim
Cavill opened the Surfers Paradise Hotel
that same year, and suddenly the town
had its first real landmark. Located
between the ferry jetty and the white
surf beach just off the South Coast
Road, it became a popular spot and various
shops and services sprang up around
it. In the following years Cavill led
a push to have the name Elston changed
to the more marketable Surfers' Paradise
and in 1933 his lobbying paid off and
the town officially acquired its present
name.
The boom of the 1950s
and 1960s was largely centred on this
area and the first of the tall apartment
buildings that now characterise the
area were constructed in the decades
that followed. Little remains of the
early vegetation or natural features
of the area and even the historical
association of the beachfront development
with the river is tenuous. The early
subdivision pattern remains, although
later reclamation of the islands in
the Nerang River as housing estates,
and the bridges to those islands, has
created a contrast reflected in subdivision
and building form. Some early remnants
survived such as Budd's Beach - a low-scale
open area on the river which even in
the early history of the area was a
centre for boating, fishing and still-water
swimming.
Some minor changes
have occurred in extending the road
along the beachfront since the early
subdivision and The Esplanade road is
now very much a focus of activity in
this part of the Gold Coast. Promenading
and people-watching takes place in this
area where land use encourages not only
residential activity but tourism with
supporting shops and restaurants. The
intensity of activity, centred on Cavill,
Orchid and Elkhorn Avenues, is reflected
in the density of building development.
Of all places on the Gold Coast the
buildings in this area constitute a
dominant and enduring image visible
from many vantage points in the city
from as far south as Burleigh Heads
as well as from the mountain resorts
of the hinterland and beyond.
Click on the following
links to visit the official websites
for the major theme parks in Surfers
Paradise Queensland Australia.
|
