[6] The discovery of gold brought a huge influx of people to the region, and the various Boards broke up into smaller administrative bodies to better service the growing population.

[7] The boundaries of the new shire remained largely unchanged until 1984, when outlying districts including the suburbs of Nerimbera and Parkhurst were ceded to Livingstone's larger neighbour, City of Rockhampton.

While the township is small having a population of 318 in 2006,[17] its relative isolation makes Keppel Sands a significant community centre for people living in the surrounding rural areas of Joskeleigh, Coowonga, Tungamull, and Cawarral.

[citation needed] Directly offshore and visible from most seaside towns on the Capricorn Coast is the popular tourist destination, Great Keppel Island.

[citation needed] Forty kilometres of long beaches and shallow coves grace the Central Capricorn Coast from Farnborough in the north to Zilzie in the south.

[citation needed] Fishing and boating are popular pursuits, with community festivals well frequented, and local support groups such as the Rural Fire Brigade well attended.

Due to its location in the southern tropics, the Capricorn Coast experiences hot summers without the extreme humidity of Far North Queensland, and mild winters without the freezing temperatures of the south.

The year round temperate climate lends itself well to a relaxed lifestyle, which has proven popular with new families moving to the Capricorn Coast on the back of the mining boom.

The Kuinmurrburra nation had six allied tribes within it; the Kutuburra, Ristebura, Wanuburra, Wuruburra, Pukanburra, and Muinburra, which existed in relative harmony to allow for nature's swinging moods.

With the settlement of Yeppoon in the late 1860s, the principal landholder on the Capricorn Coast, Robert Ross, removed the Kanomi population from North Keppel because they were disturbing his cattle.

[citation needed] This changed the following year with the commencement of regular stagecoach services from Rockhampton, and the continued mining of copper and gold in the coastal hinterlands around Cawarral and Mount Chalmers.

By 1889, the town was growing steadily, and boasted several hotels and boarding houses, a sugar mill, a telegraph service, a Methodist-Presbyterian church, and Yeppoon's first state school which is today a heritage listed building.

[citation needed] Pastoral Lands and settlements now filled the landscape from Woodbury and Byfield in the north, inland through Bungundarra, Lake Mary, Tanby, Mount Chalmers, and Cawarral.

From there, the fifteen kilometre trek to Sand Hills as the township was then named, was fraught with peril, not least of which was the permanent wetlands that effectively made the town an island.

[citation needed] It was because of this inaccessibility that Keppel Sands failed to grow at the same pace as its sister towns across Coorooman Creek, but nonetheless a pioneering spirit from local residents saw the township prevail.

[33] From the time of its inception, Emu Park was the hedonistic playground of the Rockhampton social set and well-heeled gold miners from Mount Morgan, who used their considerable influence to lobby the Queensland Government for a rail link to the fledgling seaside town.

The Emu Park Museum also houses many historical relics of the rail line that helped make the remote southern communities of the Capricorn Coast more accessible to the public.

[36] In 2012, dialogue began between community groups and Rockhampton Regional Council to convert the track formerly occupied by the Yeppoon line into a cycling and hiking trail.

[citation needed] The history of the sugar industry on the Capricorn Coast was a short one, commencing in 1883 and ending twenty years later, but its effects still linger today.

[citation needed] As late at 1911, attempts were made by various parties to resurrect the sugar industry with proposals for central mills at Rockhampton and Yeppoon, however people's memories were long, and financier's did not come forth.

With Queensland's rapid growth however, demand began to outstrip supply, so enterprising ship owners developed new methods for sourcing workers from the Pacific.

The Queensland Government made some attempts to limit the effects of the practice, notably the Polynesian Labourers Act 1868,[43] but the provisions were frequently evaded by unscrupulous ship owners who were paid per head of cargo.

[47] In Farnborough, Robert Armstrong, the former manager of the mill, gave employment to some of his former workers to tend his farms, and in the south, Paul Joske and other landholders leased them blocks to grow crops and raise their families.

[citation needed] As an interesting point of closure to the history of the mill, the manager of Farnborough Sugar Plantation, Rutherford Armstrong, died in 1958 at age 97.

[citation needed] With Australia's entry into the Vietnam War, the Australian Army took control of Shoalwater Bay, Townshend Island, and a large tract abutting Byfield for use as a military training facility.

[citation needed] In 1971, a Japanese syndicate headed by Yohachiro Iwasaki acquired hundreds of thousands of hectares of beachfront land including wetlands in Farnborough to build a resort.

The acquisition caused widespread outrage, given that Australian citizens and developers had been refused to buy the land on several occasions prior, and also due to the belief that the deal was corrupted by kickbacks at the Queensland Government level.

[citation needed] Notably, on the northern fringe of the Capricorn Coast, 454,000 hectares (1,120,000 acres) at Shoalwater Bay is managed and utilised by the Australian Army for military training.

Featuring a host of interactive elements including water cannons, jets and an umbrella bucket, the Keppel Kraken is heaps of fun for families with young kids.

At the southern end of the Capricorn Coast is Zilzie Bay Great Barrier Reef Resort, a sprawling complex located south of Emu Park (closed as at 2016).