LAIDBACK LIFESTYLE KEEPS OWNERS IN CARDWELL

Terrific facilities including a country club with a 9-hole golf course, a bowling green, swimming pool and fishing and boating facilities second to none are great reasons to put down long-term roots in the town.

POPULARITY as a retirement destination and a laidback, outdoor lifestyle mean Cardwell residents are more likely stay in their properties for longer anyone else in Australia.

The seaside town topped the list in a recent Core Logic RP Data report which showed residents held on to their properties for an average of 20.2 years.

Hinchinbrook Real Estate owner Lindsay Hallam has lived in Cardwell for more than three decades and said the findings did not surprise him.

“I can understand it because if you look at the demographics of the town there’s a lot of people here who are older and for a small town, which is pretty, we’ve got terrific facilities for a town of our size,” he said.

“We’ve got a country club with a nine hole course and a bowling green – it’s a social hub. We are a structured town whereas a lot of towns on the coast are a series of little villages with no heart.”

Mr Hallam said “from a fishing and boating perspective Cardwell sticks out like a beacon”.

A harbour created by Hinchinbrook offers all-weather fishing conditions with a variety of species being hauled in. An Olympic-size swimming pool, retirement village and less humid climate than towns further north are also key drawcards for the region.

Harry and Stephanie Berger (pictured above) inherited their 1030sq m Bowen St property and have lived there since 1995.

The pair have lived between Cardwell and Ingham for most of their lives but added a laundry and turned a bedroom into a formal dining room to their current home in 2005.

After Cyclone Yasi tore through the region the older section of the house had to be rebuilt .

“Our house is in a great spot, we’re a couple of hundred metres from the beachfront, we get a nice cool breeze here – that's why we extended it because it makes it more liveable,” Mr Berger said. “When I first came here it was a timber town, we had two sawmills and there were 11 contractors cutting sleepers and telegraph poles. We had a lot of young people here, we had heaps of kids but then when the Wet Tropics Heritage Listing came in all that was stopped and now about 50 per cent of people are over 60.”