Friday 9 August 2013

Cape York Adventure Part 5: Bamaga, Seisia, New Mapoon, Injinoo and Umagico

Seisia from the Jetty
After the intense trip across the Jardine River and a little more unsealed road and you will come upon 5 small communities which make up the Northern Peninsula Area (NPA), they are Bamaga, Seisha, New Mapoon, Injinoo and Umagico.
Mutee Head
Between all these places you'll have most things you will need, small grocery store, post office, mechanic and wreckers. It's quite an interesting part of the world, the land had been handed back to the indigeneous owners and there is an interesting culture which feels half western, half traditional.
Horses can be found grazing in random places and plenty of dogs hang around the communities. On the west side of the NPA area are some very gorgeous beaches. Seisia jetty is a beautiful spot looking out to Red Island and the urge to just jump in the water can be pretty intense! Alau Beach and Loyalty Beach are a couple of nice campground beaches all the camping parks up here seem to cost $12 per person. However, if you're keen a really nice free camping beach can be found further down the south west at Mutee Head.

No bites, for me or the crocs!
New Mapoon has a fishing store which gives excellent service, grabbed myself a couple of lures and tried my hand fishing at Mutee Head and south of there at the Pump Station. I didn't catch anything, could be due to the wet season being a soft one, or due to me being a terrible fisherman!

Bamaga is your main location for shopping, however prices are about double what you'd pay at your average convenience store so it could be smart to keep enjoying that noodle and rice you stock up on beforehand. Alternitively just near the shops is a bakery with some reasonably priced and pretty good meat pies "Gotta have a pie up the top!".


 Beaufort bomber Wreck
Head over east and you'll see where all those shiny 2WD cars come from, the Injinoo Airport. Detour off the main track north just before the airport and go down a small 4WD track to find a crashed Beaufort Bomber from WW2. The track leading to the Beaufort Bomber is a dry rainforest dirt track, with heaps of rusted out 44 gallon drums by the road, best stick to the dirt track for your tyres sake! The Bristol Beaufort Bomber Mark VIII was an Australian made twin engine torpedo bomber, it could travel at 431k's per hour and could carry 2000 pounds of bombs. Pretty intense what we had back in WW2. Although this plane came down and smashed to pieces.
DC3 Wreck
Back on the main road and a little further west just at the dirt road turnoff to head back to the Jardine River you can find the DC3 wreck. Not as much of a drive as the Beaufort, the DC3 is just off the main road. Back in 1945 it was enroute to New Guinea when it came down and all the crew died, another lovely war time story.
If you want to see more photos of the wrecks click here!

- Cameron

Next Making it to the top!


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