Life's good as a Cape crusader

GETTING to the tip of Cape York Peninsula is a journey but staying there can be a true holiday, writes Andrew Bain from Australia's true north.

Eliot Falls / Andrew Bain

GETTING to the tip of Cape York Peninsula is a journey but staying there can be a true holiday.

Beyond the corrugations, the creek crossings and the bulldust, Australia's northernmost point is a welcoming place where cooling waterholes, tropical islands and sandy beaches await, all in easy reach of the tip.

The neat but uninspiring town of Bamaga, 35km south of Cape York, is home to the tip's only resort and makes a good base for exploration, though there are also good camping options at three beaches to the west and north.

The best of these beaches is castaway Punsand Bay, draping away west from near the tip of Cape York and offering absolute beachfront camping with perfect sunrise and sunset views of Cape York. If the crocodile warning signs don't spook you, you can pitch a tent just metres from the Torres Strait, at the very edge of the soft sand.

Swimming in the ocean isn't recommended, but the Punsand Bay Camping Resort has an above-ground pool for washing away the heat of the day. It also has a good restaurant with a menu changing daily, ranging from "reef or beef" to a $55 seafood buffet which includes marinated crocodile.

South from Bamaga, the main road crosses the Jardine River and veers close to an inviting trio of waterfalls, each one offering a good, crocodile-free swimming hole at its base.

Nearest to the road is the long, straight line of Fruit Bat Falls, tumbling over a 3m-high ledge into a shallow pool in a scene reminiscent of the gorges half a country away in the Kimberley.

Stand at the base of the waterfall, its water washing over your shoulders and back, and you'll get a decent massage and spa in one.

Downstream and about 7km away along the Old Telegraph Track, Eliot Falls and Twin Falls converge by the confluence of the Eliot and Canal creeks. Dramatic Eliot Falls roars through a V-shaped break in the bedrock, while Twin Falls spills through a series of warm pools as inviting as they are attractive.

Wander upstream from Eliot Falls for a couple of hundred metres and you'll find the finest swimming spot of all in a deep pool at the base of the cascades known as The Saucepan.

It's a difficult spot to leave, and there is the option to stay, with the peninsula's largest and most inviting camp ground sprawled along the western bank of Eliot Creek. Well-shaded, it has individual camp sites, picnic tables, drinking water and toilets.

One of the major attractions of a visit to the tip is the presence of Thursday Island, less than a two-hour ferry ride from both Seisia (Bamaga's port) and Punsand Bay, squeezing through the rest of the week – Wednesday Island, Friday Island, the Tuesday Islets – to get there.

With its flame tree-lined shores, Thursday is an island where churches and pubs vie for prominence, and where the colours of the compact business centre are as luminous as the waters of the Torres Strait.

Known up here simply as "TI", it's a place infused with island lethargy, and where sitting back doing nothing is half the charm.

If you do get the urge to explore, the climb to Green Hill Fort rewards with a view encompassing much of the Torres Strait Islands.

The cemetery, which spills down a hillside almost into the ocean, contains a poignant memorial to hundreds of Japanese pearl divers who died in the Torres Strait from 1878 to 1941.

The Gab Titui Cultural Centre, with its design inspired by a Torres Strait head-dress, is also worth a visit for its galleries and exhibitions but also for its cafe, which has arguably the finest coffee and cakes throughout the islands and peninsula.

Back on the mainland, there's still one place beckoning: the tip of Cape York. From Bamaga, the journey to the tip is worthwhile even if only for the drive, which passes through the unfortunately named Lockerbie Scrub.

Australia's northernmost stand of rainforest, it's as thick as it is green, and shares some traits with the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, just a short hop across the strait.

The road to the tip ends beside Frangipani Beach, a gorgeous sweep of caramel-coloured sand lit by the myriad colours of the fringing flame trees.

Here also are the remains of Pajinka, once a flash resort with one of the most alluring addresses in the country, but now just a basic camp ground set amid the rainforest.

From the road, you must walk to reach the tip, climbing onto a rocky headland which peters away to become Australia's northernmost point. It takes about 15 minutes to walk to land's end, where a metal sign declares, You are standing at the northernmost point of the Australian continent.

For many, it's the crowning moment at a journey's end; for others it's just another beautiful spot in a larger holiday.

- The Sunday Telegraph