Double Island
Located around 4 kilometres east of Ellis Beach, 2 kilometres north-east of Palm Cove and just over 23 kilometres north of Cairns, Double Island (Djabugay/Yirrgay: Wangal Djungay) was believed to be the resting place of the Rainbow Serpent Gudju Gudju.
The previously uncharted island received its name from Owen Stanley in 1848, as he surveyed the Inner Passage of the Great Barrier Reef from Dunk Island to Torres Strait in HMS Rattlesnake. Stanley noted the island's distinctive appearance from his survey station in Trinity Bay.
Around twenty-five years later, George Elphinstone Dalrymple's Northeast Coast expedition camped on the island while Dalrymple recovered from a broken rib in 1873.
Following the discovery of gold and tin in the hinterland, Double Island became well known in the 1880s and 1890s as a holiday retreat for Irvinebank miners and a secure location for local graziers to graze cattle.
After Island Developments Pty Ltd developed a tourist complex on the island in the late 1970s, the late Robert Holmes à Court and his wife used it as a private retreat in the 1980s. A group of local businessmen converted it into an exclusive boutique resort catering to A-List celebrities in the nineties, but it fell into disuse after the turn of the century. When a proposed $10 million upgrade failed to eventuate after Hong Kong businessman Benny Wu bought the lease in 2012, Wu's lease was revoked, and the island was returned to the Queensland Government in June 2024
