Seisia, QLD – 95 km

 

Doug decided to take a night off from cooking last evening and we went over to the restaurant for their world famous wood oven-fired pizza. All they serve for dinner is pizza and some of the choices were pretty weird, like shrimp, squid and mackerel, so we settled for “The Larry” which was prosciutto, peppers, mushrooms, feta, etc. and was very good. The memorial is to croc victim.

Woke early to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. So far we have done very well for the weather but we do need to remember we are now in the rainforest so to keep everything as lush as it is the rain is needed. This also settled the red dust so no big clouds behind us as we drove for a change. It did create some mud though! The back of the camper is gross. Doug was able to at least wash the window so we can see out while sitting inside.

Today we accomplished what we came all this way to do – we made it! To “The Tip”, Pajinka as the aboriginals call it. It was an interesting ride over washboard, through a few creeks (one being quite deep) and through an amazing “green tunnel” where the vegetation has formed a canopy over the road. The road is narrow with few places to allow to vehicles you meet to pass. There are vines hanging down and deep ruts making it interesting to negotiate. We spent a bit of time in 4X4 low range today.

At the tip there are numerous abandoned buildings making up the old Pajinka Lodge. Someone tried to make a go of it as a wilderness resort a few years ago. It even had boardwalks through the rain forest.

Once we arrived at the tip parking area we started our 1.5 km hike over the rocks, up the barren slope to a series of stone cairns that turned out to mark the way. The books talked about there being white painted rocks to indicate the correct direction but we did not see that. The view from up there is phenomenal and thankfully the rain had stopped, the sun was out and there was a nice breeze. You could see the rugged mainland coastline as well as some of the islands of the Torres Strait. We decided to do this early before it got too hot and even at that it was 25 degrees. Eventually we reached the sign telling us we were at the most northern point of Australia. A lady took pictures for us but this “selfie” seemed to be the best of the bunch. You can see how windy it was, but it was a lovely warm wind. In spite of that we were pretty sweaty by the time we got back to the bottom.
 

 

Our next adventure was a drive to Somerset, which was established as a coaling and shipping station back in 1850s. There are some old cannons and a grave yard but not much else. We did go down to the beach and were amazed at the huge mangroves growing there.

 This is an aboriginal camping area which is covered in our Jardine Ferry fare, but we had already booked our spot here in Seisia for two nights so made our way back here after making another stop at the Croc Tent to shop.

This was laundry day but unfortunately there are no dryers. That seems to be the case in most of these northern campgrounds. We think it is because electricity is expensive and some even run totally on generators.

Tomorrow we take a walk-on ferry to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.