Today, Tranquility on the Daintree is only a short ten minute drive to the nearest community. Popular with people from all over the world, Tranquility on the Daintree has become an exclusive, self contained Daintree accommodation experience.

Perfect for a romantic Daintree honeymoon, a family holiday destination or simply to relax and escape the hustle and bustle of the outside world. Tranquility on the Daintree offers luxurious Daintree accommodation and is the complete Daintree holiday destination.

But how did it all begin?

In 1874, a young married French family fled to England to escape the hardships of Paris, caused by the political rigors of the time. Arriving in the London, Monsieur Henri Joseph Niau and his petite wife Madame Marie Caroline Niau were soon lured by the promises of a new French commune in the Pacific, known as “ La Nouvelle France”.

Unbeknown to them and the other four hundred settlers, the founder of this project, the Marquis De Rays was a man of poor character and his promised land was little more than virgin jungle, home to cannibal native tribes.

Rather than joining the Marquis’s fleet of settlers in 1879 on their voyage to the supposed paradise, the Niau’s chose to make their own way to Sydney Australia in 1880, settling at Edgecliff, to allow the colony to be properly established.

In late 1880, one of the fleet of four ships that took the settlers to the colony returned to Sydney to collect provisions and relate tales of starvation, death and disaster. What was promised to be a paradise proved to be a living hell and upon learning of his countrymen’s fate, Henri funded and led a rescue mission to save the surviving colonists.

Upon his return in April of 1881, Henri met with a consortium that was selling land on the banks of the Daintree River in Far North Queensland, based on the promised development of a sugar mill nearby.

Unseen, Henri took an Agricultural Homestead Lease over two square miles (1280 acres) of virgin rainforest, now the site of Tranquility on the Daintree, payable at one pound an acre and relocated his wife and daughter to the banks of the Daintree River. Initially the family lived in a small calico tent until a suitable house site could be established and cleared with the aid of Chinese labourers from the nearby goldfields.

When the promised sugar mill failed to eventuate, Henri set about clearing his land in earnest, selling the Red Cedar logs he fell for a sizeable profit. This profit was soon consumed as the family established their house, roads and planted fields with crops, principally corn. Their house was set nine feet off the ground on wooden stumps, with a rough sawn floor from timber transported from the sawmill in the Daintree Village, calico walls and iron roof.

Three years of misfortune followed. The family’s first year crop was lost to flood in 1884 and the second year’s crop lost to fire in 1885. In 1886, Aborigines displaced from the goldfields made their way down the Daintree Valleys, attacking and killing white settlers. Henri was forced to barricade his small family into their tiny house guarding against surprise attack twenty-four hours a day. To make matters worse, members of the family, including Henri, succumb to malaria. At the height of the fever, Henri would try and drown himself in the little stream below their house. His wife Marie would physically tackle Henri and try to restrain him as he dragged her through the undergrowth.

In 1887, the family abandoned the property on the Daintree and relocated to Neutral bay Sydney. Henri then went on to invent and patent a device for speeding up the maturing of wines. Unfortunately, one of the principal ingredients was antimony and while developing the invention Henri accidentally poisoned himself. He died at the age of 48 in 1888. There are no living descendants of the Niau family in Australia.

Tranquility on the Daintree allows you the opportunity to take a step back in time. See first hand where this pioneering family lived, walk in their footsteps and marvel at the relics of their life they left behind.