Tuesday 19 December 2023: Captain Cook Highway between Cairns and Port Douglas 100% CLOSED for 4 weeks?

Cairns and Port Douglas are affected by widespread record breaking floods as a result of severe weather and rainfall over 1000mm since Cyclone Jasper crossed the coast on Wednesday last week.

The Captain Cook Highway is now estimated to be completely closed for approx: 4 weeks due to significant landslides and road damage. After initial hopes of reopening in 48 hours - those hopes have been dashed.

We do not recommend anyone to make bookings for transfers between Cairns and Port Douglas until after 19 January 2024 at the earliest. We will update here when that changes. All our booking forms have this alert in place.

There is also significant damage on the inland highways which remain closed, but if the inland route via Kuranda and Mareeba opens up we will update our services. 👍

Many locals who physically provide the services for tourism have had their homes and business flooded. The closure of the road then has a devasting effect on employment and also the movement of resources into flood affected areas. The Cairns, Port Douglas, Mossman communities and all in between will need time to clean up and regroup before focusing on the delivery of tourism services which is the lifeblood of our region. We look forward to seeing guests to our region back as soon as possible. 

Refund, credit enquiries or change of date requests please email the details on your booking form and we will reply as soon as able. General enquiries may be delayed as our staff focus on managing existing bookings.

Thank you for your understanding.

This message will be updated when the situation changes.

Thank you Newsport for your excellent coverage and reporting like this which helps us spread the word 👍

Image: Captain Cook Highway is currently impassable due to multiple landslides. Picture: Dean Miller and posted on Newsport - see link above for latest at time of writing this post.