Cardstone
Developed to accommodate workers and their families during the construction of the Kareeya Hydro Power Station, the former village of Cardstone is located 20 kilometres southeast of Ravenshoe, 39 kilometres northwest of Tully, 94 kilometres south of Cairns and 210 kilometres north-northwest of Townsville.
The former village occupies less than 1 square kilometre of the similarly named locality, which stretches along the valley of the Tully River within the Tully Gorge National Park in Queensland's World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics.
Construction of the Kareeya Power Station began in 1952, and the power station commenced operation five years later, with the construction workers, staff and their families accommodated in a small village just under five kilometres downstream from the plan. The village was named by amalgamating the names of the area's two local governments — the Cardwell and Johnstone Shire Councils.
When the power station became fully automated — operated from Townsville — at the beginning of the 1990s, the decision to close the village and relocate the maintenance staff to Tully saw the village's buildings — 29 homes, a single men's barracks, a school, and a post office — being sold for relocation. All evidence of the village was bulldozed, and the 60-hectare site was replanted with local native species so that it would revert to its natural state. A proposal that the village be retained and used as tourist accommodation was opposed by the Cardwell Shire Council, which believed it would not be cost-effective.
