Torres Strait Side Trip

Although I've called this a "side trip" technically we reached our northernmost point out in the islands. Also, this is an Ultimate-free few days, so it must be a side trip, n'est-ce pas? More about that later. 

Here's where we went ...

Torres Strait Islands

... and this is how we got there ...

This is the main ferry that runs between Thursday Island and Siesia on the mainland. It holds upward of a hundred passengers and the ride takes a little over an hour.

Horn Island

Masterful Max, in his wisdom decided to book us in for two nights on Horn Island. One of the first things that's a bit different - well, none of us had seen its like before - was this sign as you get off the wharf ...

Hmmm. Maybe they've had a few people fall out of the back of utilities ...?

We stayed at the Gateway Torres Strait Resort. A pretty grand name, eh! (That's the Canadian eh. Not to be confused with the Queensland eh. More about being Canadian here.) If you're envisaging 5 star accommodation, forget it. You won't find that anywhere in the Straits. (By the way, have you seen the ABC TV series called "The Straits"? Probably not to everyone's taste, it's described as " an exotic and darkly humorous family crime series". Anyway, we enjoyed it. You can buy the series, or probably borrow it from your local library.)  

Back to our accommodation. Here's a photo of a sign that greets you upon arrival ...

A nice greeting, eh?

The Gateway worked well for us. It's run by a sixth generation Torres Strait island family, and they know the islands well. The Gateway - I hesitate to call it "the resort" because something far more grand comes to mind with that phrase - houses the Torres Strait Heritage Museum and Art Gallery, developed by curator Vanessa Seekee, OAM. I'm not trying to act as an advert for the Gateway, but you get unlimited free entry - when it's open - to the museum if you're staying there. 'Nuff said.

We had a couple of hours to ourselves before lunch and then we went off on our Horn Island tour with Vanessa. Max specifically asked for her when he booked our package because he and Prue had met her when they were out on the islands way back in 2002 (when they stayed on Thursday Island and did a day trip to Horn) and found her interpretation outstanding. Well, she is still bringing her A game when she comes out to bat.

Horn Island is described as the forgotten outpost of World War II, but Vanessa is doing her bit to change all that. She has obtained a grant from the Federal Government to restore some of the ruins of the defence network that was in place to protect the airfield from Japanese attacks and reconstruction will begin soon. In the meantime, she and husband Liberty have been doing a great job in interpreting what's there. Here's a photo of Vanessa telling us about one of the 3.7" anti-aircraft gun placements ...

... and a close-up of the picture in the book she is  holding ...

The actual gun placement is set into a concreted, sunken area that is surrounded by magazine bays like this ...

... so that the gun can be loaded easily whatever direction it is pointing.

The following two pictures are what's left of a Boeing B-17 that crashed as it was coming into land with a whole lot of parts and ammunition on board ...

... and here's what the plane looked like ...

There are concrete trenches in at least two different locations that allowed soldiers to move from an information-gathering spot back to central intelligence relaying points ...

They travel around corners so that if a section of trench is hit by a blast the force won't travel unabated all the way to  the other end.

For me, the most sobering part of our historical tour was visiting the grave of Roy Brown, an American soldier, and listening to Vanessa tell his tale. He is the only non Islander buried on the island. When he was nearing the end of his life he made it clear that he would dearly love for his ashes to be buried on Horn Island where he served alongside his mates. Application was made to the council of elders that make these sort of decisions and, after a long period of consideration, they granted permission. Here is photo from the grave ...

Back to the theme of nature, there was this Screw Palm growing in the area where a lot of this historical wreckage is found ...

There is a great network of ferries and water taxies running between the islands which makes getting around really easy. this is the "Australia Fair" which we used to get to and from Thursday Island ...

We walked down to the wharf one evening to have a look at the sunset, which was okay but not special enough to post a photo. However, there were lots of Darters around, and plenty of little fish for them to feed on. it's a great sight to see them come up with fish and manipulate them into positions that allow them to be gulped down their necks. At times they didn't seem particular interested in fishing, just gliding about the wharf and looked beautiful with feathers streaming out behind. This picture isn't particularly good but gives you an idea of what I'm talking about ...

They are just as beautiful out of the water ...

The highlight of being the beach that evening though was watching a Royal Spoonbill searching little pools of water for stuff to eat. Di took this neat little video while we were down there ...

Interestingly, the airport is on Horn Island but the bulk of the population live on Thursday Island. This is a historical thing as TI has a more sheltered anchorage, positioned as it is amongst the surrounding islands. However, Horn Island has a wharf with quite a big crane, perhaps to unload fuel for airplanes. Here's a photo taken at low tide ... 

As you would imagine, people on the islands are very sea-oriented. It seemed like just about everybody had a boat parked in their front yard. In the evening there was a lot of activity down at the boat ramp. This photo seems to capture the mood of the place pretty well...

For our dinner, Di and I decided to have a meal at the pub down the road. Food was very good and the menu was reasonably varied. The most interesting thing though was this amphibious craft parked out the back ...

Thursday Island

About four thousand people live on TI, as Thursday Island is know by anyone living in this part of the world. We had a tour of the place on our second day, led by Arthur Liberty Seekee. Liberty, as he prefers to be known, is native to the islands, with his family's history here stretching back over a century. Here he is posing at the cemetery with a pearl shell ...

... which sits on the memorial to all the Japanese divers who perished while diving ...

Here's what the plaque says about that ...

While the plaque lists the number of deaths as 700, Liberty reckoned that it was more in the order of 1100. Pretty sobering stuff. Sadly, there seems not to be someone who looks after their graves, judging by the state of this section of the cemetery ...

A major point of historical interest is Green Hill Fort, built in the late 19th century as a reaction to the fear of invasion by, of all people, the Russians. We can't beat the website linked to in the previous sentence for photos of the fort itself, but there is also a neat little museum in the fortifications. We didn't have long there but I did take this snap of the old-fashioned diver's suit ...

... and of this map of the islands, with various routes marked in. Note also the dugout canoe in the foreground, along with the turtle shell, paddles and other shells ...

While some folks might prefer constant blue skies, we have been enjoying more mixed conditions. We have had some stretches of sunshine but it hasn't been too hot or muggy and we've had lots of different sorts of skies to look at, including this beautiful moody vista from the "Main Wharf" on TI that I took while we were waiting for the ferry back to Horn Island ...

.. and one that Di took when we arrived back on Horn Island ...

Friday Island

I'm not sure the others agree, but for me visiting Friday Island was the highlight of our sojourn on the islands. It's all about the Kazu Pearl farm, run by Kazuyoshi Takami. We landed ... 

... walked past the whale skeleton on the beach ...

and went straight to lunch. And what a lunch it was!

This is just a small sample of what we were served ...

As you can see, despite the very generous platefuls of food there wasn't a lot left when we finished ...

Top quality fresh food, shared with friends, is always a great pleasure. But the experience of being taken through what goes on at the pearl farm, most especially the skill involved in pearl seeding process, was a very special moment. A great deal of detail about the way the pearl is formed was given. How's this for a graphic demonstration of the anatomy of the pearl shell oyster ...

There is a small window of time for being able to have the oysters out of the water, gradually using wooden wedges to get it to open up and then insert a bit of mantle and the seed pearl. Here are a couple of snaps of Kazu-san operating on an oyster ...

The incision has to been done just so, and the two foreign bodies inserted in just the right place. Kazu-san told us that, despite his 40 years experience of doing this tricky operation, he only has a success rate of somewhere between seventy and eighty percent.

This eight minute Youtube video shows Kazu-san in action explaining what he's doing ...

That's about it for this post, folks, except a last word about the people of the islands. I don't think I've been anywhere that I've felt more welcome. Everyone had a smile and a greeting. That may sound a bit of a cliché. Sorry, but it's true. I didn't see a scowl or an argument anywhere. Stress doesn't seem to be part of life in Torres Strait. So, if you want sometime to experience a bit of laid-back south sea island life and catch a bit of little-known Australian history, I highly recommend a few days off "the tip". 

Oh yeah.  Maybe just one more word. (If you're wearing a starched collar, stop reading now.) Speaking of laid-back lifestyle I took this little study along the waterfront on TI, across from the Federal Hotel ...

Cheerio, chaps!

Nearly there: the Pen-ULTIMATE leg

(Almost) Weeping in Weipa

Perhaps the less said about Weipa the better, but it seems - well, wrong, really - to completely gloss over the times that are less than wonderful. And there were some good things so I guess I really need to file a report on Weipa before moving on to the penultimate stage.

First up, Max had organised sublime camping right on the beachfront. There was plenty of birdlife about, especially on the water. Here are a couple of shots Di took from where we were situated ...

This was somewhat offset the first night by the guy camped next to us, who snored almost as loud as anyone we'd ever heard snore before. We wondered how his female partner could have slept herself. I did see her on her way to the amenities block the next morning and she was pressing her head in such a way as to suggest she was suffering from a fairly bad headache.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly after we arrived and set up camp, Di and I went to the shopping centre. We needed to buy a few provisions, thought we'd have a coffee and check our emails and I wanted to have a haircut. The haircut was a no-goer. The one hairdresser in Weipa reckoned she couldn't take any additional customers  until next week. I was so keen I even asked for a quick buzz cut. She couldn't even manage that. Maybe all the locals wanted to look their best for all the out-of-towners flooding in for the Weipa Fishing Classic, which was coming up in a few days time. Still, I thought she'd be able to do a quick clip job, seeing as there wasn't anyone waiting apart from the bloke who was in the chair, and he had less hair on than me already. No such luck. Strike one.

So, off we went to the coffee shop only to find that our new super-duper Telstra mobile broadband modem wasn't connecting us to the internet. After an hour and a half on the phone and being hand-balled around three different Asian gentlemen I gave up in total frustration. I believe the third gentleman really was trying to help by getting me to do the same sequence of things over and over again but he clearly wasn't on top of the problem. By the end I was just about barking. Strike two.

The next morning we discovered that - for whatever reason - our fridge had stopped working. Clearly it had stopped working some hours before as all the contents of the freezer had thawed and everything in the main compartment was warm. While Graham and I were at reception checking out the deal on the mine tour we spotted this possible replacement fridge ...

... but thought that Don might declare the Ulti was not a "powered site" as such.

Anyway, we hurriedly rearranged things so all the stuff that looked salvageable went into the car fridge, which meant that the beer had to come out. Most of the stuff in the freezer just had to be chucked out. Strike three.

Thankfully things started to look up from there. When we got home we decided to try the internet again and, lo and behold, we were able to connect and do stuff just fine. That's when I stayed up late into the night and wrote up the previous post of this blog, but only after calling Telstra to let them know that there must have been something about the Weipa shopping centre that had stopped us from connecting when strike two happened. The upshot was that we got a couple of free gig of internet access added to our account.

Later in the morning, along with Liz and Graham, Di and I had a tour of the Weipa bauxite mine which I found somewhat interesting in the sheer enormity of the enterprise. (It is one of the largest - if not the largest - bauxite mine in the world.) Di, on the other hand,  said categorically "That was the most boring tour I've ever done".  This picture of a bauxite mine might give you an idea why ...

Yep. That's it. That's a bauxite mine, just without the machines running around in it.There's not much to it really. Essentially all they do is scrape off the overburden, scoop up the bauxite and then fill in the area afterwards. But the machines they us are VERY BIG. So big that we couldn't actually fit one into a frame of the camera. And the amounts of bauxite they dig up is staggering. Here's a picture of the loading facility:

Whatever. All four of us understood why Prue and Max decided to give the tour a miss after having done it once before.  Enough said on that subject.

Once we got back, Di decided to try to kick start the fridge by filling the bottom section with ice. She reasoned that, if nothing else, we'd be able to keep some perishables at least a bit cool. I reasoned that I'd be able to put beer back in the car fridge. Guess what? The fridge did start working again and, apart from other benefits, we did have cold beer again. Things were looking up, especially when we discovered that the snorer next door had moved on.

So, now we can move on. To preview this section, here's a map of the Cape York area with our approximate route marked in in red and blue, with boxes around places of interest (if you right click the image it will open in a new window and you can enlarge it to full size):

To Captain Billy's Landing

What a great drive we had the next day! While the first part wasn't very interesting, once we found our way off the Peninsula Development Road we started to have a lot of fun. And there was one real point of interest on the PDR in the form of the Moreton Telegraph Station, which was completed in 1887 and is now run as a commercial enterprise. Situated adjacent to the crossing on the Wenlock River, it was also a useful stopping off place for folks who might have to wait for flood waters to recede - although it was sometimes inundated along with the surrounding bushland. Here's the entrance ...

... and a close-up of the sign telling you what the place has to offer ...

The kiosk provides a nice place in a rustic style to cool off for passers-by ...

We actually bought a great sticker from here showing a Palm Cockatoo, which we still hadn't seen up to this point. However, there was a Bush Turkey scratching around down by the river ...

... but Max the consummate draftsman was most interested in the new bridge. Here he is inspecting the structure - and no doubt the workmanship - and giving Liz the benefit of his expertise ...

No doubt Graham wouldn't have minded having the bridge there away back in 1986, when he came across on a raft of 44 gallon drums, while others drove through the river with water over the bonnets of their vehicles.

Shortly thereafter we stopped at Bramwell Station for an early lunch. It was somewhere you could stop and camp if you were in between other roadhouses or camping areas. There was what seemed to be a kiosk set up so I went over to see if they did lunch. It turned out that they only served dinner, but did have grog available (a couple propping up the bar were already on to Jim Beam and Coke). We passed on that offer and had our own refreshments. We then took a neat little four wheel drive track through some lovely bush that was a bit of a short cut off the main development road. I managed to persuade to get Di to take take a photo of this magnificent Cathedral Ant Mound ...

... but only because she also spotted this cattle at just that spot. She was particular taken with the one that had the multi-coloured face ...

We rejoined the main drag for another short drive before arriving at the turnoff to Captain Billy's landing. If you look at the vegetation behind the sign below you will probably notice much thicker vegetation than we've seen for a while. That's because we are back in rainforest ...

... where we assembled before setting off ...

... on a great little track through the forest It had a number of neat little creek crossings before we fetched up at this great spot to spend a couple of nights ...

It was a bit windy when we arrived (a bloke we met pulled over beside the track said that it was "blowing its guts out down at Captain Billy") so we tried to slide into spots as out of the wind as we could. Graham and Liz and Max and Prue slotted themselves in behind the picnic shelter but Di made it clear that she wanted me to park in this place where the track curls down from the hill ...

Prue had previously resolved to put on a lamb roast, and had organised all the fixings in Weipa (one more tick on the good side of the ledger for Weipa) including rosemary sprigs for her roast and the vegies that Di was doing in our little camp oven, as well as mint and apple for her own special mint sauce. Unfortunately this photo of that great meal is all I have to illustrate our enjoyment ...

Next morning we all set off at various speeds up the beach for a walk. Max remembered the beach being covered in thongs when he and Prue were through here seven years ago. There didn't seem to be quite so much footwear, or flotsam in general, but there was an interesting variety, including this massive hawser embedded in the sand - so big and heavy I couldn't budge it ...

What must have been something of a hazard to even reasonable sized boats was this Westinghouse freezer ...

But, as always the natural environment was the most interesting. I really liked this tree that had been prevailed upon by the - dare I say it - prevailing winds ... 

Sorry about that, but it really is a good illustration of the way wind can shape vegetation. It was about 10 metres long and the main trunk was about as big around as my thigh.

Although it was a bit blowy I had been contemplating a swim, but not after we came across this croc hiding place just around the corner ...

Focussing again on the beach rather than the water, we started to see a number of holes like this one, which my thumb easily fit into ...

I thought there might be crabs in these holes, so I dug down with a Nautilus shell I found laying on the sand nearby ...

... but after about 600 mm the hole just petered out.

Towards the end of our morning walk the sun actually came out quite strongly for a while and we got this photo showing what the shore looked like southwards of the landing ...

After a seafood-free lunch we all headed off together in that direction. The tide had gone out enough to allow us to sneak around the headland on a rock shelf that was partly covered with sand ... 

There were caves to explore ...

... and these interesting, pitted but very solid-looking rocks deposited on the beach ...

Back near where one arrives at the beach is the old, ruined jetty ...

... which we thought might have been used to bring supplies ashore during World War II.

That night it rained (and blew its guts out) quite a bit, which was quite good because Di got some lovely vegetation shots the next morning before we set off ...

She also went down to the beach strand and got this nice shot of a creeper that was weaving itself into the sand ...

We left Captain Billy's Landing with this panorama imprinted on our minds (don't look too closely: the stitching hasn't worked as well as I'd like) ...

We Roll On to Loyalty Beach

Back to the main road and then northwards, the next major point of interest is the Jardine River crossing where it is necessary to take a ferry across if you wish to enter the Northern Peninsula Area. Cost for a car, trailer and two passengers: $145. Don't worry, that covers the return journey. Here's the ferry arriving at the south bank of the river with one car on board ...

... and Di and me getting off on the north bank ...

And now on to the highlight of the day, something we'd been looking forward to for a long time: a freshwater swim at the famous Fruit Bat Falls. Prue took this photo of the falls ...

... and this one of the rest of us enjoying the water ...

Back on dry land, Graham asked if we'd seen the carnivorous plants. Di went back down the track and took a few photos. I thought this was the best one ...

By this time we really felt we'd arrived in the far north, especially as the roads had suddenly deteriorated significantly - but there was also a certain "je ne sais quoi" in the air.

After lunch it was back on the road for the final short leg to Loyalty Beach.  This memorial can be found at the entrance to reception ...

... and here is the detail from the plaque ...

It seems pretty sad that "Old Dan" (Old? At sixty?) died only four years after establishing the campground and fishing lodge at Loyalty Beach. 

Now for another Max story. (Max is short for Maxwell, but it could also be "Maxi-Million" because he's worth his weight in gold, maximising every situation). When we arrived we discovered that we hadn't been allocated a spot to camp despite having booked quite some time in advance. Max managed to negotiate a wonderful area for us to pull into and set up our campers. There's not a lot else to say about Loyalty Beach at this stage,  because we had just the late afternoon to appreciate the beauty of the place before catching the ferry over here to Horn Island in the Torres Strait Islands group. I'll write more about Loyalty Beach when we return to the mainland the day after tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's a photo of some containers waiting to be hoisted about the main cargo ship that serves the islands. Note the vehicles perched on top of the containers ...

The next photo shows that cargo ship, with our ferry in front - which gives you an idea of how big is the passenger ferry that runs between Siesia on the mainland and Thursday Island ...

After the hour-long cruise across to Thursday Island we sat waiting for the little ferry that would run us across to Horn Island. We are now in island mode ...

... and so are Liz, Graham, Prue and Max ...

That's it for this post. More on Horn and Thursday Islands and Loyalty Beach in the next post. And then it's off to the tip of the continent. See you later ...