Mount Surprise
Located in the Etheridge Shire, 285 kilometres southwest of Cairns in Agwamin/Ewamian Country, Mount Surprise is the eastern gateway to the Gulf Savannah.
Yorkshireman Ezra Firth arrived in the area with his family in 1864. His station at Fossilbrook originally ran sheep, but relations with the local people were hostile, and the country was not suited for sheep, thanks in large part to black speargrass (Heteropogon contortus)
Developed initially as a telegraph centre and cattle siding after the Etheridge railway reached the area in 1908, Mount Surprise declined as railway traffic from the mining and cattle industries dropped off in the 1930s. The all-weather Gulf Development Road in the 1960s revitalised the town as a livestock trucking centre.
More recently, it has become a tourist destination thanks to interest in the nearby Undara Lava Tubes and other geological attractions.
