B
ack in the 1970s, when Joh Bjelke-
Petersen’s shadowy state government
ruled Queensland, a thriving group of
people lived in off-grid bliss on Cedar
Bay beach, about eight hours hard slog by foot
through the rainforest from the coastal road
that connects Cairns to Cooktown, just past the
mouth of the Bloomfield River.
In stark contrast to the authoritative
conservatism practised by Joh and his
ministerial cronies, the Cedar Bay community
was an alternative loose-living ‘hippy’
commune. Perhaps some enjoyed going
without clothes now and then, maybe a few
had a fondness for a bit of home-grown jazz
woodbine and, most certainly, there was noBy 1976, Joh and his police minister had had
enough of this open defiance of their heavily
policed and controlled version of Queensland
and so launched perhaps the most absurd
police raid ever staged in Australia. More
than 30 special forces officers, armed to the
teeth with automatic rifles, rappelled out of
helicopters and surged onto the beach aboard
inflatable NAVY SEAL-style tender boats
launched from a frigate anchored offshore,
scattering chickens and uprooting vegie patches
as they went about their business removing the
contented upstarts.
Forty-one years after the raid, Joh’s long
gone, but original members of the Cedar Bay
hippies still live nevisit these days, it’s possible to recognise
remnants of several fruit tree orchards on flat
ground behind the coconut trees and visit the
marble gravestone of the commune’s sole hold-
out inhabitant, Cedar Bay Bill, on the northern
end of the beach. It still takes eight hours to
walk there through dense rainforest. But the
reward of going to the effort is, usually, having
one of the world’s greatest rainforest fringed
tropical beaches all to yourself.
The 70s Cedar Bay commune is quite well-
known. What’s less known is that, today, there
are similarly ambitious communities dotted
throughout the Cape, quietly going about their
business, happily anonymous, living off-grid
r too much interactionion of Cape York
off-grid. And really, is
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around the often washed-out trracksYou'll have some of the world's
most stunning beaches all to yourselfOff grid. Choose your own pathway