To get to the actual tip Steve and I had to walk a rocky path. We met up with Robyn, a lovely lady, who was walking up on her own.
We finally reached the tip! It was definitely worth the kilometres and red dust corrugated roads. It was beautiful and I felt I could’ve sat there all day.
We took the obligatory photos with the sign and then a drone came over us!
It turned out that it belonged to Robyn’s husband Steve! He couldn’t do the walk so the drone did it for him. Robyn and Steve have a Youtube channel called ‘Are we there yet?’ where they post videos they’ve taken on their trip. We should be on Steve’s video he took of the tip with the drone. How cool!!
We walked back down via the beach where the tide was out. Again it was a beautiful view.
After leaving the tip we took a drive out to Somerset which is an area of great historical significance, European settlement history dating back to the 1860’s. There was a monument and cannons and the Jardine family graves. We need to google to find out more.
After that we were going to drive the 5 beaches 4WD track but after crossing the first beach we went to drive the track over the headland and it became very tight overhead and we had the kayak on the roof which wasn’t going to fit. So we had to turn around, we had also left the maxtrax on the trailer so probably not a bad call.
With tip done Steve and I celebrated with Lobster Mornay for dinner. Yes!!
The previous day Steve purchased two large painted crayfish from a guy off the beach. He had a boat load! The two Steve bought were about a kilo each for $40!!! At home they’d cost about $150!! They were sooo fresh!! Best I’ve ever eaten.
On Friday we took the boat to Thursday Island.
We’d booked a tour of the island expecting a bus load and it ended up being just us! Our tour guide, Dirk, was born and raised on Thursday Island. His father was Chinese and his mother was a Torres Strait islander. The Chinese side coming from his paternal grandparents who came to Australia for the Palmer River gold rush. He drove us around the island which is only 1 square mile – the smallest of the Torres Straight Islands, but most populated.
He showed us around a crayfish business which had some big crayfish!
The island had good facilities for the locals. It had a reasonably sized hospital, a high school and primary school and a big sports centre. The main street wasn’t very big but it did have two pubs.
We stopped at a fort that was built when the Russians were a threat. It was called Green Hill Fort. It had a museum underneath with army and maritime relics.
The islands had once been a centre for Pearl shell diving, with up to 300 boats in operation at its peak. Japanese divers going to incredible depths with very basic equipment – which also resulted in a lot of deaths.
The industry was turned on its head in World War Two. The islands were evacuated and all the Japanese interned. After the war the locals and a few Aussie entrepeurs restarted the industry as the Japanese were gone.
Now TI is a major government headquarters, providing administration to the local communities as well as Border security to the north – Indonesia, and PNG.
It was up on a hill with cannons and it had great views of the other islands. We could see right back to the mainland. We could also see Friday island. There is also Tuesday and Wednesday Islands.
After this Dirk drove us further around the island. He drove past the cemetery explaining the funeral traditions of Torres Strait islanders. It is a celebration of their loved ones life. Unfortunately we couldn’t do a drive through because there was a funeral on at the time. There were 600 graves of the pearl divers who lost their lives diving for pearl shells. He also explained that they can wait for many years for the tombstone while the family saves to pay for it. Once it is there they have an unveiling and big feast.
Next he took us to a place near the shore where there were sand pits they used to cook the feasts. He said they don’t cover the pits the old way with leaves. They now place wet cloth on top. This place used to be a popular fishing spot. They had a sign there asking fishermen not to clean their catch there because it attracted crocodiles to the area.
He then drove us back to town as the tour was over. He asked us to take some brochures advertising his business which was called ‘Lax’. The reason behind it was some of the local kids had a hand signal which meant relax. They shorten it to ‘Lax’. You can see the signal in the photo taken of Dirk and Steve.
We then checked out the cultural centre which had an exhibition of traditional masks and various wood carvings and paintings for sale.
We had look around town and then headed to the pub for lunch and an Internet fix. The island, like many aboriginal settlements had 4G!! We had about 2 hours to fill in before the boat took us back Seisa on the mainland.
In Seisa there were horses everywhere just roaming the town. There was even a foal?? We never found out why they were just roaming free.
It was an interesting trip to ‘TI’, as it is known by the locals.
The next day we packed up early and were away by 7.30 to head back down the cape.
We went back across the Jardine River and stopped for petrol. The price was a record! $2 a litre!!!
We decided we wanted to make as much ground south as we could so we planned on doing a long drive. We stopped briefly for coffee at Bramwell Junction roadhouse and their machine was broken. 😔 So we made lunch there (sausage sandwiches) and kept driving. The termite mounds were huge here!
The drive back was straight down the middle and cut out Weipa and Lakefield national park, so saved us a few Kms. Along the way we saw a few casualties – roadkill, rolled burnt out cars, and this camper trailer:
If you zoom in you’ll notice some writing that says “for sale, apply within”. Glad to see they hadn’t lost their sense of humor.
We hadn’t come through completely unscathed ourselves. We have a crack in the windscreen from a rock, and it’s growing rapidly.
We also had the power cable head to the trailer completely shatter.
Next was another quick stop at Coen for petrol and then onto Musgrave Station for the night. 9 hours drive!
Once setup we checked out the campground. The vehicle of choice is definitely Toyota. At each campground we noticed that they would easily make up 90%, split between cruisers and hiluxs (Utes were very popular with the young boys). The next 9% were your patrols and pajeros, and the rest was made up a wide array – Discos, Jeeps, Subarus, Isuzus, and even the odd Audi.
Roof top tents were very popular too, either for young couples or for caravaners who had left their van in Laura. Having watched them set up, we are still not convinced – a tent would be easier.
Musgrave Station had cows everywhere!
One managed to get locked into the campground for the night so we had some interesting noises throughout the night! It was calling out to another cow and sounded a bit like a wild pig.
That evening we watched the wallabies game in the pub there. They let us stay and watch it when it closed. They turned all the lights off and left us with the remote. We weren’t happy with the results!!
The next morning we had packed up by 8am and continued our journey south. By 2pm we had left the dirt roads of the cape behind and finally arriving at Atherton. we set up camp here for a couple of days so that we could clean up a bit, restock supplies, and plan the next stage of the Adventure – The Savannah Way.