The Tully Golden Gumboot Story

The Tully Golden Gumboot makes a good story and photo op!

As Tully is Australia’s Wettest town, and with that honor celebrates it’s wetness with a unique giant Tully golden gumboot history.

How the Tully Golden Gumboot Story began…

With the strip of coastal land between the North Queensland towns of Tully, lnnisfail and Babinda (ref: see Cassowary Coast eMap) is the wettest area in Australia and recognized as one of the wettest zones in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere. The yearly claim of being the wettest town in Australia is hotly contested between these towns and in the mid 7O’s, ABC rural reporter David Howard coined the phrase “The Golden Gumboot”. This was a media award only, but was proudly claimed by the winning town.

There were many aims of “rigging the rainfall”, but it has been said that if there was any cheating it was “fair and honest cheating”. In recent times, Babinda has won the award in 2001 and Tully won the award in 2002, even
with the low rainfall recorded in that year. However, Tully has the annual (Australian) record of the highest rainfall recorded in a populated area.
This record was set in 1950 with 7.9 metres (7,900 mm, 25.9 feet or 311 inches).

Whichever way you measure it, this is a lot of rain in 12 months!

Inside the boot there are informative stories and pictures of past big floods in Tully. This is a great little stop for all ages, with information about the rainfall and the reasons behind the gumboot being built. Whilst there you can climb up the stairs inside to the top!

Learn more about The Far North Queensland Sunbird

The Tully Golden Gumboot is a bit hard to find, but once found is worth all the effort.

Traveling along the Bruce highway, lookout for signs to turn into Tully, as at time of writing there are no clear directions to the Golden Boot.

Once on the road into the township of Tully you can not miss the Giant Gold Gumboot.

Across the road there is the other Tully attraction in the Tully Sugar Mill which is also a great place to visit too.

And best of all you don’t want to miss the Tully Sugar Mill Sugar Tour, tours run during the cane cutting/harvest season only.

Make sure you book first at the Tully Information Centre.

Other Big Stuff to see in the area…

Driving north from Brisbane the don’t miss getting a “selfie” with the other 6 BIG THINGS IN THE FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND!
Starting along the highway outside of Bowen with…