( Flickr: Peter Asquith)Īnd so the Mangrove Man plied his trade on the mudflats for 17 years, until the contract was reassigned to a traditional owners group earlier this year. The Cairns Esplanade is now home to a wide expanse of mudflats where there was once a sandy white beach. Historian Timothy Bottoms' thorough A History of Cairns: City of the South Pacific 1770-1995 quotes a visiting writer who recorded some rather grandiose memories of his arrival at the Strand Hotel "on the beach of Cairns" in 1922. The Cairns Esplanade is a picturesque tourist hotspot with a sweeping man-made swimming lagoon that overlooks the gateway to the Coral Sea.Īt high tide, water laps against pylons that shore up a popular boardwalk – but at low tide a long, flat expanse of mud attracts some of the world's rarest wading birds. He was the Mangrove Man of Cairns – but that is just one element of this complicated man.Ĭopley is a semi-retired sugarcane farmer, commercial fisherman, fount of knowledge when it comes to some of Far North Queensland's murkier history, and a crocodile killer.
It was Errol Copley, a man who until recently boasted one of the most bizarre job titles Far North Queensland has to offer. Mangroves, the moon landing, a dead crocodile and reptile urine all have one man in common – and he is ready to spill his guts.Īnyone peering over the Cairns Esplanade for the past 17 years may have seen a lone figure trudging across the mudflats with oversized boots and a bucket in tow.
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