Photos from the Real AUSTRALIA

Cape York Peninsula of North Queensland

Cooktown is the site where Captain Cook ran on a reef with his ship "Endeavour" in 1770 and had to beach it to get it repaired. He and his crew spent seven weeks here while they repaired the stricken ship. A town came in existence here in the early 1870s to service as a port for the goldfields at Palmer River and was first known as Cook's Town. The goldfields declined but the town remained important as the first port of call for mail steamers sailing to India and as a trading port with the Pacific Islands. Cooktown now caters for tourists visiting Cape York and the scenery on the way to the Daintree.

The Peninsula Development Road up the peninsula climbs over the Great Dividing Range leading past the town of Laura with its yearly Aboriginal Festival and its nearby Split Rock Gallery with its Aboriginal paintings. North of here is Lakefield National Park with its huge termite mounds and reminders of its pioneer past, when the local Aborigines killed the explorer Kennedy; a river is called after him. There are now large cattle stations on Cape York peninsula as well, but most remains unspoiled bushland, with small Aboriginal communities. It is 240 km from Laura along a dusty road to Coen, a wild goldmining town in the late 1870s and now a small service town for the surrounding Aboriginal communities and cattle stations. 114 km further on is the turnoff to the bauxite mining town of Weipa, 145 km further on the west coast.

The Telegraph Road continues further north, four wheel drive only. The first obstacle to cross is the Wenlock River and there are many more crossings with as the most formidable the Jardine River, where there is a ferry. Eventually, 324 km from the turnoff to Weipa is Bamaga, Australia's most northerly mainland township. The majority of residents are Torres Strait Islanders, descendants of Saibai Islanders, led by a man named Bamaga Ginau, who resettled here after their island was devastated by a tidal wave. The reserve that was established took Bamaga's name. Nearby on the coast are the small settlements of Umagico and Seisia from where there is a ferry service to Thursday Island. Just off the north western tip of Cape York is tiny Possession Island, where Captain James Cook raised the flag on 22 August 1770 and claimed the east coast of Australia for England; the Aboriginal people, of course, were not consulted and remained unaware of their distant ruler for a long time after this.

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