Captain James Cook, sailing along the east coast off Australia in 1770, is credited with discovering the Gold Coast and naming Point Danger and Mt. Warning at the southern end of the region. Little could he have guessed, the progress and prosperity that would change this area into thriving metropolis over the next two centuries.
Although the region was first officially mapped by Robert Dixon in 1842, it has been a holiday destination for hundereds of years. Aborigines are said to have trekked to the foreshores from the Gold Coast hinterland, and as far north as Maryborough, for tribal feasts held on the site of the now "Cascade Water Garden" at Broadbeach.
The aboriginals called the Surfers Paradise region "Krurungul": because of the plentiful supply of a certain hardwood tree that was useful for boomerang making. The pines and cedars lured timber cutters from the south and in 1842 Edmund Harper and William Duncan came from the already established cedar camps on the Tweed River and set up camp. Neddy Harper's grave is situated in the Cascaded Gardens.
J.H.C. Meyer, a pioneer, established a ferry to overcome an obstacle to the development and for many years the area was called "Meyers Ferry." One visitor to the area in 1888 built the "main Beach Hotel" on the side of the Nerang River, opposite the present Surfers Paradise Hotel site. In 1923 James Cavill came as a visitor from Brisbane and built a hotel in an area known Elston, this is the now Surfers Paradise Hotel. The land on which it stood was bought for $80, before he died he was offered $370,000. Surfers Paradise was officially named in 1933. The area has always been popular holiday area stretching back to the turn of the century.
Since then Surfers Paradise and the rest of the Gold Coast has become Australia's No. 1 holiday destination.