Wednesday morning was a ferry trip from Cape York across to Thursday Island. The colonial government established a settlement on TI in the late 1880s in order to deter other European countries getting ideas about settling in northern Australia. It’s been an important defense post ever since. A fort and battery were originally established in response to concerns around Russian invasion. It was later a major staging point for troops and defense post in the 2 world wars including a large American presence during WW2. During WW2 all the able bodied men from across the islands volunteered to form the TI light infantry brigade. Horn island, with its airstrip, was heavily bombed with significant loss of life. TI wasn’t bombed, and the theory is that was because of the many Japanese graves on the island following pearl diving.
That afternoon we caught the school bus over to Friday Island, which has a population of 3. There’s an old Japanese guy there who runs a pearl farm and gave us a demonstration of how he cultivates and harvests the pearls. On return we adjourned to the top pub in Australia for some very ordinary wine. The first night of our tour we went for drinks beside the pool expecting people would join us- but no one did. This time we just mentioned that we were heading to the pub.
TI has a population of about 3000 with all facilities including a 20 doctor hospital. These doctors run clinics around the 18 islands as well as the Cape York communities. Schools, churches, pubs and good sporting facilities. The school bus driver whips around the islands in a water taxi picking up and dropping off the kids each day. It’s got a really nice feel to the place.
All the workers up here wear fantastic tee shirts and we were trying to get hold of some from the pub, but they didn’t have them for sale and we’re not otherwise prepared to part with them. State of origin night with lots of happy locals around the next morning.
Thursday was a quick ferry trip across to Horn Island and a war history tour before catching flight back to Cairns. A lot of the war remnants have been just laying “as is” since the war and are rusting way and being over grown by the scrub. The woman who led the tour has been leading a program of restoration and she took us to a couple of the sites. One of a gun battery protecting the airstrip and the second of a crashed American bomber. She’s doing a terrific job of documenting and preserving the history.
Our last night of the trip was in the very swanky cairns Shang ri la hotel with a terrific farewell dinner. Nancye made a great speech thanking Kate and Doug which managed to stun Doug into silence for first time in 13 days. Bit of a shock returning to the van on Friday morning, particularly when I discovered I had decimated wine and food supplies before departing. Sorted by online ordering with deliveries of wine and groceries via Uber eats. The happiest people to see me here are my neighbors in the next van. They arrived a week ago and, having seen no body, were starting to think there might have been a dead body living next door ( so to speak).
Over all a wonderful trip with Outback Spirit and I would recommend it to anyone.
Round about 