Innisfail had to rebuild itself after a cyclone flattened much of the town in 1918, and it chose to do so in the latest style. As a result, this sugar town on the Johnstone River has one of the finest collections of Art Deco buildings in Australia, with colourful façades, geometric patterns and elegant shopfronts lining the main streets. Just to the east, the Moresby Range runs down to the coast in a band of steep, rainforest-covered hills, part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage area, one of the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforests on earth.
The range shelters small bays and beaches, including Etty Bay, a quiet cove where cassowaries are known to wander out of the forest onto the sand, and Flying Fish Point, at the mouth of the river, with its fishing boats and views over the sea. The rainforest is dense, humid and full of life, with tree ferns, palms, vines and the calls of birds you will rarely see.
Inland, Paronella Park at Mena Creek is a striking oddity: a Spanish-style castle and gardens built by a Catalan immigrant, José Paronella, in the 1930s, now partly overgrown by the rainforest, with a waterfall, tunnels and moss-covered stairways. It is one of the most unusual attractions in north Queensland.
The riding around Innisfail is a mix of the busy Bruce Highway, which runs north and south through cane fields, and quieter roads into the hills and along the coast, where the corners come thick and the surfaces can be damp, leafy and slippery. Traffic includes cane trains crossing the road during the crushing season, roughly June to November, so watch for the warning lights. Rain is frequent, especially in the wet season from December to April, when downpours can flood roads quickly.
Innisfail has fuel, supermarkets, cafés and pubs, and the town has a strong Italian heritage from the migrants who came to work in the cane fields, so a good coffee and a plate of pasta are easy to find. Come in the dry season, from May to October, when the weather is warm and clear. Ride out along the river to Flying Fish Point in the late afternoon, and watch the light fade over the sea and the green hills of the range.