Palm Cove News



NOVEMBER 2003

Majority for link

AFTER RECEIVING feedback from last month's editorial, your editor conducted a door-to-door poll on the issue of a link road between Palm Cove and Clifton Beach. One hundred Palm Cove residents were asked : "Are you in favour of the proposed link road between Palm Cove and Clifton Beach or not?" The results :

In favour - 66
Not in favour - 25
No opinion - 9

Some opinions from those in favour were:
* The esplanades at both suburbs should be connected for a scenic drive.
* I have friends in Clifton Beach and I'd like a shorter way of visiting them, especially when they close Veivers Road.
* It's not good town planning to isolate beach suburbs. Big cities down south have main roads connecting beach suburbs and also link roads between the beaches.
* I've seen Daikyo's land where it joins with Linden St and it's only scrub, nothing special. I can't see what the environmentalists are on about.

Opinions from those not in favour included :
* We like to keep Palm Cove quiet.
*The road connecting Triton Palace roundabout and Wild World is sufficient to carry the traffic.
* I believe in isolating Palm Cove.
* Palm Cove is Palm Cove; Clifton Beach is Clifton Beach.

Our village booming

PALM COVE has had 195 rooms come on line this year having recorded a record year for room occupancy. Tourism Palm Cove president Alex Whyte said hotels, motels, and serviced apartments recorded 82 percent occupancy in August, a five percent increase from the previous year. "The quarter was terrific," he said. "Every property has been filling up with the overseas market coming on line together with a strong domestic market. Sydney and Melbourne have really come to the fore." Alex said Cove once had 40 percent Australian visitors, but now it was more like 50 percent. He said our popularity was unquestionably helped by the marketing blitz by big-resort developers such as Juniper's Sea Temple taking out full-page advertisements in Sydney and Melbourne. "They have focussed attention on Palm Cove as a destination," he said. Cairns Post tourism editor Elizabeth Inglis was also impressed. "With three reef operators departing from Palm Cove jetty and numerous nearby attractions, the popular beach is becoming known as a destination in its own right," she wrote on Oct 3.

New name for an old home

THIRTY-SIX Veivers Road, the oldest house in Palm Cove and now owned by Malcolm and Patsy Blight, is to be called Sweet Creek Cottage.
Patsy said they are about to commence renovations on the cottage and will then let it out for holiday bookings. "Being quite interested in the history of the cottage, we visited Cairns Historical Society in search of details," she said. "A title search revealed that Queenie Neil and her late husband bought the land from Syd Veivers in 1958. Queenie, who is now in her mid-nineties and lives in Atherton, told us they had purchased a railway cottage and had it re-located from Cairns to its current site in Palm Cove."
Malcolm and Patsy's renovation of their home in Cedar Rd is nearing completion.
Footnote : We have always thought 36 Veivers Rd was the original site of the first house in Palm Cove, a beach hut erected by Rob Veivers. In view of Queenie Neil's advice, we contacted Rob's son Clive Veivers of Woree, who wrote an historical account of early Palm Cove (See Sept/Oct/Nov 2001 editions). Clive, a young-looking 80-Y-O, paid us a visit with his wife, inspected the cottage, and said No.36 was not the site of the beach hut which was much closer to the beach and now demolished. This makes No.36 our oldest standing building.

Guiness underwater record attempt still on

GERHARD BEULKE had it all organized:
An underwater wedding for Dec 5th with guests, marriage celebrant and happy couple totalling 50, all with scuba gear in about fifteen metres of water at a coral reef off Palm Cove. It was to beat the record of 39 people at Key Largo, Florida recorded in the Guiness Book of Records, 2001.
Gerhard had a trial run with couple and celebrant in his 3-metre deep pool in Terebra St, ensuring all parties could hear the celebrant via their special communicating masks as is legally required.
Alas, on September 13, 106 scuba divers broke the record about 50 metres off a sandy beach at the Rainbow Beach Club, St. Croix, West Indies.
Gerhard, however, is nothing if not a fighter.
He approached a Cairns dive company who said that 150 divers at a wedding on the reef might be attainable for Dec 12th. We'll let you know.

Editor : A world record for the Guiness Book of Records would involve the world's media and provide priceless publicity for Palm Cove.
If Gerhard can't make it happen on Dec 12, you can be sure he'll be having a go before too long.

"We have plenty of regular divers, especially from Europe, who are keen to be married underwater on the Great Barrier Reef. All we need are the guests," Gerhard said.

We now have a local celebrant

Nicola Beulke of Terebra St is a newly-appointed marriage celebrant.
Married six years to Gerhard (who is probably about to become notable for his Guiness attempt, see story this page) Nikki, as she is better known, is a keen scuba diver and will be a celebrant for future weddings.
Nikki, who of course also conducts weddings on dry land, would love to marry someone from Palm Cove, she said.

Her address is 63 Terebra St, phone 4059 0903, Palm Cove 4879; email: info@fantaseaweddings.com.au with web page http://www.fantaseaweddings.com.au

Property News

Sea Temple Resort & Spa has been sold out seven months before completion. All 83 apartments and bures have been nabbed by investors, the developers said.

Published by Jerry Dukes, 52 Terebra St, Palm Cove 4879.
Ph 4059 1610; Fax 4059 0058
Email: jgdukes@ozemail.com.au
On website: http://www.palmcove.net/