Aug 8-11 (Day 189-193) - Bramwell Roadhouse to Umagico - the Tip!

Saturday August 8 - Bramwell to Umagico

At last we were on our way! Remembering we had planned to start driving up to the tip of the Cape on Sunday last week, it was considerably late, but we'd had a lovely time at Bramwell Roadhouse and had experiences we definitely would have missed if it hadn't been for the broken spring. We would not have travelled the Old Telegraph Track. The boys wouldn't have had all that time making their car tracks. We most likely would not have seen Weipa either. There is a silver lining to every cloud.

Nonetheless, the cloud had now passed and the tip of the Cape beckoned, so we hitched up and (gingerly) pulled the van out. But we had nothing to fear; the springs held all the way and are looking in good working order.

Leaving Bramwell Junction Roadhouse - our home for the past week!

We took Bamaga Road, not the Old Telegraph Track. It's being graded so in places is quite good, but other spots were terrible!

Yuk! Corrugations!

These corrugations were about 7-8cm tall, which really shakes things about!

Pick the gap around the corrugations!

Driving along roads like this requires complete and constant concentration because the surface is always changing. You're always looking at the road a little way in front of you, rather than further ahead for oncoming traffic, out for patches of bad corrugations, trying to pick the least corrugated path around them, which might be on the opposite side of the road so you've also got to monitor traffic ahead, especially approaching corners. Also as the surface condition changes you need to adjust your speed - typically faster for worse corrugations so you glide over the top rather than dropping in and out of each gap. We would normally go about 70-80 but at times you have to go a bit quicker, which gives you less time to react if a really big one comes along! It's not a relaxing drive by any stretch of the imagination.

Fortunately this section of road only lasted for about 50km or so, interspersed with the odd patch of bitumen and better-maintained sections.

Boo! :( Another dirt road coming!

At the Jardine River Ferry

But at last we got to the frontier - the Jardine River! This can only be crossed by a ferry, and we'd heard whispers about this being closed to tourists because of Coronavirus, which is one reason we'd been trying to get up to the top fairly promptly.

 

Heading onto the Jardine River ferry. Switch a couple of details
and you'd think it was Waikerie!

The ferry itself, as the photos show, is very similar to the ferry over the Murray at Waikerie, except the Jardine River isn't as wide and the ferry has a wooden base instead of bitumen. The main difference is that, unlike Waikerie where the ferry is government-funded, this ferry is pay-per-use. It cost us $130 for a return trip with our caravan, the trip across taking about 60 seconds! I assume this money goes straight to the local communities. It's still a bit steep though, but when you've got a monopoly on it, well there you go.

A few minutes across the ferry we stopped on the side of the road for lunch.

Lunchtime. And a chance to admire our new paint job!

Back on the road

After probably another hour or so we reached the town of Umagico (just down the road from the 'main' town of Bamaga), where we're stopping for the night. The feel of this place is quite different to anywhere else we've been to, which brings me to...

A bit about - the tip of Cape York

The character of Cape York rather changes once you cross the Jardine River. Physically it's much the same initially - scrub, corrugated roads which vary from deep red to light yellow. For a while you're just driving along more of the same types of roads as you were before the Jardine River. However when we got to Umagico, near the 'major' town of Bamaga, you realise the character of this place is quite different.

In a nutshell, up here it feels like you've left Australia and landed in a Pacific Islands version of Australia. Perhaps this is the influence of the Torres Strait Islands which lie in the waters directly north of us (by the way that's where they are - when you fill out those government forms which ask 'Are you of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent?', this stretch of water is the Torres Strait). The towns are all quite run down, with weatherboard houses on stilts in most cases. Dogs and horses roam freely around the town - we saw six wild horses inside someone's fenced front yard eating their lawn and walking all over their flower beds! On one occasion we saw a couple of teenagers riding some horses bareback along the beach. Children play on the road. Few of the locals look like traditional Aboriginal people; most of them have much more an appearance of Pacific islanders. While there are some traditional street signs, there are many signs which are hand-written or hand-painted, directing one to the nearby bakery or other store. The main reminder you're still actually in Australia is the number plates on the vehicles.

It seems council regulations which apply everywhere else in Australia, e.g. about dogs being registered, having a collar and so on, simply don't apply here. The Northern Peninsula Area Council seems to be largely an indigenous organisation so things are very different. 

When we got to our campsite, there were three adult dogs with three puppies which just roam the park. They were very friendly and the guy who was the sort-of caretaker said we could take one if we wanted. Just like that. Prior to this, we had reported to the kiosk to pay our fees, but there was a texta-drawn sign saying it was closed and to just find a park if anyone needed one and they'd catch up with us. Well we arrived on Friday, and I'm writing this Monday night and we still haven't seen this mysterious owner to even know how much we're supposed to pay for staying here, let alone actually hand over the money! The 'kind-of caretaker' apparently leases the place from the council and is upgrading it, but he doesn't own it, doesn't really know what the fees are and wasn't sure when the lady would be there to take our money. He's a full-time carpenter too. I'm still not quite sure what his role is - maybe he isn't either!

It is a very relaxed, laid-back place, really a bit of a shanty town, but almost comical in how little anyone seems to care about things which most of the rest of us just assume must be done! One of our fellow campers who had been across to Thursday Island referred to 'TI time', which is very reminiscent of 'island time' which so many who have been to the Solomons, Vanuatu or Fiji and so on speak about. It's really like that here, except you're still on mainland Australia!

Kids and dogs roaming the street on the way in

The road into the Alau Beach Campground

These gorgeous puppies! This is 'Holly' according to our kids!

As mentioned, there were these three gorgeous puppies which hung around most of the time we were here.

The kids called this one Max

'Sooty' and 'Max' sleeping under our caravan

We're about 30m from the beach here, and you can see across to a small island, behind which is Prince of Wales Island, Thursday Island, along with Wednesday Island and Friday Island (I'm guessing these were discovered by an 1800's accountant who had a side job as an day-tripping explorer!)

Barn Island in the foreground, Prince of Wales Island in the background

Campground Criteria #1: Pool!

Poppy the mother dog keeping a watch out for crocs. Or fish. Or something.

Beautiful sunsets each evening!

Holly and Sooty asleep outside our van!

Sunday August 9

Despite a pretty relaxed week we were feeling fairly tired out, so today was oscillating between cups of tea at the caravan and splashing around in the pool. The kids are enjoying playing Marco Polo in the pool - this is basically like blind chasey. One person has their eyes closed and calls out 'Marco', while the other people respond 'Polo', and the chaser has to try to locate someone based on sound alone and catch them. We were joined by another little boy at the site who seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes closed, and had all sorts of excuses as to why he opened his eyes!

We spoke to a few fellow campers and the first topic of conversation is usually 'Have you been to The Tip yet?". Most visitors to this part of the country are here to go to the very northernmost tip of the Cape, which is the northernmost point of mainland Australia. We got a few tips from them about doing the drive, and decided to do it tomorrow just in the car while leaving the van behind.

In the evening we had our Memorial Meeting.

Monday August 10 - The Tip!

We got up fairly early as it sounds like the carpark at the tip is fairly small and can get busy at times. 

Bamaga Police Station

We first drove through the town of Bamaga, which is really a pretty small and run-down town with a number of weatherboard houses on stilts, some shops, a petrol station and a police station. It feels like houses you'd see in World War 2 times.

Beyond that we hit dirt roads again as we drove out towards the tip.

 

A typical house in Bamaga

Between Bamaga and the tip you drive through about 15 minutes of beautiful rainforest. This was so satisfying! You might remember a couple of weeks ago I said I was surprised how dry everything was, and that "I had imagined Cape York Peninsula was basically a rainforest the whole way" - well this is what I expected! It was quiet, still and simply gorgeous!

Take a moment to soak this in!
The road to the tip passes through this
gorgeous, peaceful rainforest!

We pulled up in the carpark about 10:15am and took a 5 minute walk across the beach around to the northernmost point.

The carpark at the tip

Behind the 'tip' there are a couple of the smaller of the
Torres Strait Islands

Looking west just back from the tip. Out to the far right is Horn Island.

Not far from the tip is an old abandoned tourist resort. We spent a bit of time exploring this.

 

It would have been a nice place in its prime but it seems to have closed in about 2002. There's a bit of a write-up on it at https://offthetrack.blog/tag/abandoned-resort-cape-york/

On the way back we drove out to Somerset, which is a series of beaches on the eastern side. At one stop, near some ruins of the old Jardine homestead, we found this. It had the wrong shape face for a snake so we presumed it was a legless lizard!

The roads out to Somerset were pretty rough and there wasn't a lot more to see there, so we headed back towards Bamaga. On the road back is the Croc Tent souvenir shop, so we dropped in there briefly to get some mementos from our trip to the tip!

Jude and I got some hat pins. We also picked up some magnets and
other bits and pieces.

At the Croc Tent they gave us a map of different things in the area, so after driving back into Bamaga we checked out a couple of old WW2-era plane wrecks in the area.

This Douglas DC-3 crashed on the way to New Guinea in 1944.

BANG! This is the left wing of the DC-3. Clearly visible in the centre
is where it was ripped off by a tree back in 1944.

There were also a couple of Beaufort Mk VIII's but they were in pretty bad condition so we didn't bother with photos.

As we were almost back at our campsite we passed a house where the front lawn was overrun by at least half a dozen wild horses grazing on the lawn and trompling through their garden beds!

Mind the petunias!

One of the local kids riding a (presumably wild) horse along the beach

August 11 - another quiet day

Well we're supposed to be leaving today, but

Bye bye puppies!

I've spent the past three hours writing up the blog while we still have signal so I guess we'll probably stay here again! It's a very nice spot, there's a nice breeze and there are some new kids playing in the pool so the kids have plenty to do. I spent most of the day working.

 

The only other piece of activity was that the puppies were taken away - aww! :( One of the ladies who ran the park had found someone in Bamaga to take them. They seemed very happy to be going but we also felt a bit sad there were no more cute puppies around the van.

 

We also saw a crocodile out in the waters in the evening, probably about 20m offshore just slowly cruising around minding its own business but we kept our distance!

Ciao!

-- Greg