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Mackay: A forgotten gem

The term ‘best kept secret’ gets thrown around far too often these days, but in the case of Mackay – a coastal city located midway between Brisbane and Cairns – it’s quite fitting.

Though bordered by abundant national parks on one side and beautiful tropical islands on the other, Mackay has long been overlooked in favour of Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays just to the north – but it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time when Mackay was the premier tourist destination of the region, acting as the main transport hub for the Whitsundays Islands.

Back in the 50s, Roylen Cruises operated day trips and charters to the islands from Mackay’s sheltered harbour. But when fleets of larger, swifter charter vessels set up shop in nearby Airlie Beach, Mackay lost its major tourism drawcard.

In the years that followed, tourism was all but replaced by the mining industry. But as people say, a good thing never stays secret for long.  Word is spreading and tourism is finally starting to make a comeback.

The Lost Years have forced locals to find creative ways of attracting visitors to the region. The annual Mackay Beach Horse Racing Festival sums up that creativity in a nutshell. It’s quirky, it’s fun, and it’s luring visitors in droves.

A recent downtown redevelopment and extensive network of walking and cycling trails have also made the city easy to explore, while a waterfront precinct with lagoon pools and a water playground has boosted it’s family friendly appeal.

The local restaurant scene has also had an extreme makeover. BURP eat drink and The Dispensary are two of the most exciting venues in town, with trendy décor and menus that will make you wish you could describe food as well as Matt Preston.

As nice as the city is though, it’s the surrounding region that really sets Mackay apart.

Stunning nearby beaches such as Shoal Point, Ball Bay and Blacks Beach are all Instagram-worthy, while Keswick Island, with its white beaches, tropical rainforest and vibrant marine life, is a natural wonderland.

In the Eungella National Park, located roughly an hour to the West, you’ll find one of the region’s superstars – the platypus. At Broken River viewing area, you can see wild platypus feeding in the clear mountain water at dawn and dusk each day.

It’s an incredible moment when you first spot one of these elusive creatures.

Eungella is an Aboriginal word meaning Land of the Clouds, and the reason for that name is clear when you see the view from atop the park’s Sky Window Lookout. The view as sunlight first hits the land in the early morning is pretty special.

Another spot worth adding to your itinerary is the Cape Hillsborough National Park, just 45 minutes north of Mackay. Cameras are an essential item, as you’ll regularly see kangaroos and wallabies emerging from the bush to feed on the beachfront.

Though it’s been a while since Mackay’s tourism heyday, the tide is changing and people are returning to this long forgotten gem. If you’re after a getaway with fewer crowds and amazing natural beauty, Mackay is a place worth rediscovering.

Getting There: 

Nicknamed the sugar capital of Australia, Mackay is located roughly halfway between Brisbane and Cairns. The drive from Brisbane to Mackay will take you roughly 11 hours, while the drive from Cairns will take around eight. Mackay Domestic and International Airport is serviced by regular Qantas, Virgin Australia, and Jetstar flights.

Visit  mackayregion.com for more info.

– I travelled as a guest of Mackay Tourism.

Chris Ashton

We're Chris Ashton and Simon Ceglinski, two Aussie travellers with a love of exploration and adventure, and the odd bit of luxury thrown in. We seek out street art, street food, and scuba diving wherever we go, and prefer the road less travelled over well-worn tourist paths.

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George Thomas (Tom) McLean (1901–1994)

by Hilda E. Maclean

This article was published:

• in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 19 , 2021
• online in 2018

George Thomas McLean (1901–1994), tourism and hospitality entrepreneur, was born on 12 December 1901 at Mount Morgan, Queensland, second of eleven children of Queensland-born parents George Weston McLean, labourer, and his wife Annie, née Redhead. Tom attended Cawarral State School, between Rockhampton and Yeppoon, for four years—his entire formal education. His father moved the family frequently, trying various rural pursuits interspersed with hotel ownership and mining. When Tom was sixteen, his father built a store at Dululu, near Mount Morgan, which the youth ran single-handedly for several years. In 1923 McLean senior bought two cane farms in the Mackay region; Tom and his brother Perce managed them. On 6 April 1932 at the Methodist Church, Netherdale, Tom married Helen (Nell) Bell Braithwaite (d. 1992), whose parents were local cane farmers. He had purchased a small cane farm of his own, near Calen, and the couple moved there.

Having selected a suitable tree for the timber, McLean built his first boat, the Dorothy , 24 feet 6 inches (7.5 m) in length. He reluctantly parted with it in 1938, when he became the proprietor and licensee of the Proserpine Hotel. Two years later he sold out and bought the lease of the nearby Metropole Hotel. Always interested in politics, he was an active member (1939–42) of the Proserpine Shire Council and in July 1940 was appointed deputy chairman. He unsuccessfully contested the Legislative Assembly seat of Bowen for the Australian Country Party–Queensland in 1947.

By 1938 McLean had recognised the requirement for a cruise service to the Great Barrier Reef and the islands of the Whitsunday and Cumberland groups, but his plans were thwarted by the outbreak of World War II the next year. Lowering his age by three years, on 23 April 1942 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He served in Papua with the 2/2nd Docks Operating Company (1942–43) and in Queensland with the 5th Advanced Reinforcement Depot (1944–45), as an acting (June 1943) and substantive (August 1944) sergeant.

Following his discharge on 17 April 1945, McLean bought a motor launch, the Shangri-la , which had been requisitioned for service with the United States Army Small Ships Section. The next year he sold the leasehold of the Metropole Hotel, shifted to Mackay, qualified as a skipper, and started offering charter cruises. In late 1948, needing a bigger vessel, he acquired an ex-naval Fairmile motor launch, which he called Roylen , from the names of two of his children, Fitzroy and Helen. With the five-day cruise format he devised gaining momentum, he went to Tasmania in 1950 to find suitable vessels to add to his fleet. He bought four steamers but decided, instead of sailing them back to Mackay, to use them in a second venture, McLean’s Derwent River Cruises. Hampered by what he perceived to be official obstruction to his setting up in competition with local operators and not enjoying the climate, he sold the ships and returned to Mackay in 1952. The original business had operated a second Fairmile from 1951; by the 1960s eight were in service.

As Roylen Cruises grew, members of the next generation of McLean’s family joined the firm. In 1962 the business purchased Brampton Island to use as a destination for day trips and as an accommodation option for passengers on five-day cruises. The McLeans undertook a major refurbishment and expansion of the island’s facilities, including a deep-water jetty, a miniature railway to service it, and an airstrip. By the early 1980s, the ageing Fairmiles could not cope with the demand, so the family commissioned four large catamarans and, for viewing coral, a semi-submersible. In 1985 they sold Brampton Island to Trans-Australia Airlines to concentrate on cruising. Although notionally retired, the founder retained a keen interest in his enterprise.

Generous and community minded, McLean donated holidays on Brampton Island as prizes to assist the fund-raising efforts of the Macgregor Lions Club, Brisbane, which honoured this Mackay man as its 1984 Citizen of the Year. He took an active interest in the welfare of ex-servicemen and, after the war, had presided over the Proserpine sub-branch of the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia. In 1991 he was awarded a jewel in recognition of fifty years of service to Freemasonry in North Queensland. He was appointed MBE (1970) for services to tourism. Particularly fond of lawn bowls, he continued to play after he became legally blind. The publication of his autobiography, Captain Tom (1986), fulfilled a long-held ambition. Years after he retired from the sea, he still dressed in immaculate captain’s whites.

McLean died in Mackay on 17 February 1994. His two daughters and one of his two sons survived him. After a well-attended funeral service at St Paul’s Uniting Church, he was buried in the Mount Bassett cemetery. Tourism to the reef and islands, which he had done so much to develop, became a major industry in the Whitsunday and Mackay regions. McLeans Roylen Cruises Pty Ltd traded until 2009.

Select Bibliography

• text-indent: 0in
• line-height: normal
• ">Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld). ‘Captain Tom Saw Tourism Potential.’ 19 February 1994, 6
• ">McLean, G. T. Captain Tom . Edited by Colleen Davis. Spring Hill, Qld: Boolarong Publications, 1986
• ">National Archives of Australia. B883, QX31766
• ">Townsville Daily Bulletin . ‘C. P. Candidate for Bowen: Mr G. T. McLean.’ 31 January 1947, 2

Additional Resources

• World War II service file , B883, QX31766 (National Archives of Australia)
• is selected as the Country Party candidate for Bowen in the coming State election , Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton, Qld), 6 February 1947, p 10
• Country Party candidate for Bowen: G. T. Mclean , Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld), 31 January 1947, p 2

Citation details

Hilda E. Maclean, 'McLean, George Thomas (Tom) (1901–1994)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mclean-george-thomas-tom-19021/text30625, published online 2018, accessed online 22 April 2024.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography , Volume 19, (ANU Press), 2021

View the front pages for Volume 19

© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2024

Life Summary [details]

12 December , 1901 Mount Morgan , Queensland , Australia

17 February , 1994 (aged 92) Mackay , Queensland , Australia

Cause of Death

heart disease

Cultural Heritage

Includes subject's nationality; their parents' nationality; the countries in which they spent a significant part of their childhood, and their self-identity.

Religious Influence

Includes the religion in which subjects were raised, have chosen themselves, attendance at religious schools and/or religious funeral rites; Atheism and Agnosticism have been included.

• Cawarral State School (Qld)
• autobiographer/memoirist
• cruise ship operator
• local government councillor
• resort owner
• store manager
• sugar cane farmer

Military Service

• World War II
• Member of the Order of the British Empire

Key Organisations

• Returned and Services League of Australia (Qld)

Political Activism

• Country Party (Qld)
• Proserpine Shire Council (Qld)
• Roylen Cruises
• Brampton Island

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Roylen endeavour, mackay, on a regular 5 day cruise of the great barrier reef and island holiday resorts.

Copyright © Centre for the Government of Queensland, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Letter: Roylen Cruises – Alfred ‘Happy’ Hawkins

Swinden, Greg · Mar 24, 2022 · Print This Page

I enjoyed the article in the recent Review regarding Roylen Cruises. It reminded me that one of the youngest RAN Prisoners of War later worked as a deckhand for Roylen Cruises. This was Canteen Assistant Alfred ‘Happy’ Hawkins whose father was the Canteen Manager on-board HMAS Perth .

Alfred was 15 when he joined the ship in mid-1940 and saw active service in the Mediterranean in 1941. When Perth was sunk on 1 March 1942 at the Battle of Sunda Strait his father was killed and Alfred became a POW. He survived 3½ years as a POW and was repatriated to Australia in late 1945. Following the war, he had trouble adjusting to civilian life but his family recalled he was happiest working as a deckhand for Roylen Cruises. It was here that he met a Roylen hostess Raylee McGuiness and they married in 1959, having two children. In 1960 ‘Happy’ gained his Masters Certificate allowing him to take command of a cruise vessel. Alfred Hawkins died on 15 April 1991 and was buried at the Mount Bassett Lawn Cemetery North Mackay. He was survived by his wife and two children.

Greg Swinden

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