20 August 2011 - Seisia Caravan Park, NPA, Cape York, Queensland

Soon the sun will be setting out over the islands here at the top of the Cape and we will hasten to prepare a simple dinner then sit about listening to the sounds of fellow campers. Tonight there are more in than last night, and those set up beside us are already into the rum. It could be a long night! Mind you, last night did nothing to enhance our opinion of this camp. Dogs barked from time to time all night, and others were more disturbed than us by the police wagon that came and did the rounds within the camp at least three times through the night and the wild karaoke party that was carrying on across the road. I slept through much of that.

 It suited our purposes to be up and early this morning, and on the wharf by 7.45 am to board the ferry to Thursday Island at eight; Peddell’s  Tours' eighteen metre aluminium tri-maran which does the trip from TI to Seisia and back twice a day.

Our transport to T.I.

We reached the island in just over an hour, traveling the thirty two kilometres through a myriad of islands that make up the southern section of the Torres Strait Island group. With a population of about three and a half thousand living on an area of just 3.25 square kilometres and having a deep shipping port on the route through the Great North-East Channel to the eastern seaboard inside the Great Barrier Reef, T.I. is the administrative centre for the group. It does lack a reliable water supply and so gets the bulk of its water from nearby Horn Island which lies to the south east and extends over an area of 53 square kilometres. Horn Island played a major role in the Second World War defence of Australia. The airstrip, now linking the Torres Strait to the rest of Australia, was once a frontline base for Allied troops. 900 people still call it home, but it really just provides the infra-structure for T.I; the airport and the water source.

Views down over T.I. township

Some of our fellow passengers had elected to take the add-on bus tour of the island, but we decided to do a self-guided walking tour and covered everything they did for free. We did however miss going down in to the museum housed under the fort.

From the wharf we walked anti-clockwise around the island, then crossed over the middle and up to Green Fort Hill which is one of the most intact nineteenth century forts remaining in Australia.

 
The island is just full of history from the move of the northern Australian administration from Somerset here on the tip of Cape York to there in the late nineteenth century, the “Coming of the Light” (Christianity), followed by a vibrant pearling trade, and the involvement in the subsequent wars.

The cemetery alone was worth the walk, just full of those who lost their lives diving at dangerous depths in search of pearls; Malays, Japanese and Islanders. And in the fashion of island communities, mostly well tended and decorated in a colourful manner both from the natural flora about and the tiling and engraving. I did find the stories on the gravestones quite fascinating; often the working history of the dead was spelled out in detail rather than just the fact that they were the spouse of or parent of.

We then came on down in to the “town”, bought a hotdog from a stall in front of the hardware store from a couple raising money for the annual raft race across from Horn Island to T.I. to be held in November (again bad timing for us!) at the elevated price of $3 each! Obviously Kiwi fund risers have room to move on their prices!

After mozzying around a few other sundry shops, we had lunch at a little kiosk café; yummy BLATs made from damper and wonderful cups of real coffee, the first in months and months!

We then retired back down to the wharf to a shady spot and read yesterday’s Australian we picked up at the newsagent where we were able to learn that the Wallabies had beaten the Boks last week and the creep who had bailed that poor girl up in Sydney with a fake bomb around her neck had been arrested.

Leaving the island

Chris slept most of the way home and I discovered that despite the suntan cream, I am quite sunburned.

These people next to us are reducing the scope of their language as the afternoon wears on to the F word punctuating every phrase. Do we have to listen to this!!! Tomorrow we will head off again, first to the tip and then somewhere new for our next camp, hopefully far away from those with such limited vocabulary.