Caravonica

Caravonica is a residential suburb 12 km north-west of central Cairns, backing onto the Barron Gorge National Park.

In or about 1884 a widower, Dr David Thomatis, headmaster of Townsville Grammar School, came to Cairns to establish a banana plantation. He named the plantation Caravonica, possibly because it was like-sounding to his late wife, Veronica, and in honour of the town of Caravonica in Italy, with which his family had been connected. The plantation was in the Freshwater Creek area in neighbouring Redlynch.