Trinity Beach

Trinity Beach, one of the more popular Marlin Coast beaches, is 17 km north-west of central Cairns. Trinity Bay, on which Cairns is situated, was named by Lieutenant James Cook on or near Trinity Sunday, 10 June, 1770.

A fully developed residential suburb by the 1990s, Trinity Beach was a day-long excursion from Cairns before World War II and a place for weekenders in the early postwar years. Its growth spurt came in the 1980s when the population increased fivefold to over 4000 people. Subdivision and development began in the previous decade, when a primary school (1979) was opened.

The beachfront boulevard is Vasey Parade, named after Major General George Vasey, a hero of the New Guinea campaigns who was killed when the plane he was being carried in crashed into the waters off Trinity Beach in 1948. In 2004 a Vasey Parade house sold for over $4 million.

Trinity Beach had the first stinger net swimming enclosure of the several now north of Cairns, and in the 1980s it had a wide range of modern motels, holiday units and caravan parks (three). The Trinity Sporting Trust developed a complex of sporting fields in a large parkland on Captain Cook Highway. Twenty years later Trinity Beach was in the throes of a second generation of development: a caravan park was acquired for development, the Trinity Beach Pacific apartments and the Platinum on Trinity apartments were completed in 2004, and the hotel in Vasey Parade was earmarked as an apartments site. All the developments have a rainforest back drop and a sandy foreshore below. The EPA named Trinity Beach as the cleanest far-north beach in 2003-04, and the real estate institute reported an increase of 41% in property prices. Development has brought environmental consequences: mangroves were removed for the Blue Lagoon development; and the artificial lake in the Ulysses Blue development caused the loss of tree cover. The tree cover included the food source for the Ulysses Blue butterfly larvae, the project's namesake. It was not thought that the larvae would take to the replacement palm trees. The holiday-destination architecture is a mixture of tropical and Mediterranean and there is a wide offering of sport and recreation facilities.

Trinity Beach's census populations have been: