A cruise with the works

TRAVELLING on a cargo freighter to the Cape is an eye-opening cruise experience, writes Philip Hammond.

All hands on deck ... enjoying a cold drink as the freighter Trinity Bay begins it weekly trip up the Cape York Peninsula / Mark Calleja

LINES of white-capped green waves run before a stiff southeasterly off one of Queensland's most isolated stretches of coastline.

Cape Melville, a notoriously blustery headland on the Coral Sea side of Cape York Peninsula, is a wild section of national park littered with boulders.

To Jim Cox, seeing it for the first time, the cape's rugged grandeur was a surprise.

"I had in my mind an image of lush tropical forest this far north, rather than a fairly barren rocky shore," he said.

The previous day, Jim and his wife, Beverley, and 30 other passengers had boarded the coastal freighter Trinity Bay in Cairns.

An ocean cruise did not appeal to the couple, but a berth on a cargo vessel, following the sheltered seaways through inner Barrier Reef waters, was enough of an adventure for them during their three-month north Queensland touring holiday.

The Trinity Bay is no tramp steamer; rather, a 80m converted dredge which gets along at a steady 16 knots, with drumming engines which may disturb light sleepers.

The crew eat at the buffet before the passengers, then get back to work. Then the passengers have plenty of time to eat. A chef prepares delicious food and between cooked breakfasts, lunches and dinners, there's morning and afternoon teas with cakes, plus tea and biscuits for anyone still peckish.

Even with its clean, neat ensuite cabins and accommodation for 48 tourists, the allure of the Trinity Bay is that you're buying a passage on a working cargo ship.

Those of an imaginative persuasion might conjure an unshaven Humphrey Bogart, in his dirty nautical cap, as he appeared in the movie classic African Queen, wandering up from the engine room.

The Trinity Bay does a weekly run up to Horn Island, Seisai, near Bamaga and Thursday Island and in the cooler winter months, booking a berth needs to be made many months in advance. It sails north on Fridays and south on Mondays.

The ship's purser Adrienne Vearing says 30 to 35 is a good guest number to have aboard, and these passengers have the freedom of four levels of the ship. The main dining, relaxation room and bar are on the second level, there's an open viewing deck above it, and on the upper deck, there are good views over the cargo area and the chance to chat to the skipper on the bridge.

The travellers toss their gear into their cabins and gravitate to the upper deck, to watch men at work, practising the art of loading cargo; keeping the vessel balanced and trim.

On the port side, the Trinity Bay has an enormous crane, which efficiently swings aboard a fascinating assortment of goods. On this run, chains are unhooked from intriguing crates destined for Coconut, Yam and Moa islands, a caterpillar-tracked back hoe, a mini bus, a new Customs launch and a shipment of plastic pipes and timber.

Skipper Tony Gofton, who learnt his trade on the Gulf prawn trawlers, recalls taking crates of live goats bound for Darnley Island, and container loads of motorcycles used by tourist groups who have ridden up Cape York to Bamaga.

In the prawning season, the Trinity Bay carries 900,000 litres of fuel below deck for the trawling fleet, bringing back container loads of frozen seafood.

On this trip, at Cape Melville, the ship stopped for a meeting with a Water Police vessel which had emerged from the lee of the headland. It had engine trouble and officers in an inflatable dinghy bucked across the waves to collect a box of spare parts.

By late afternoon, Gofton pulled up again, this time to rendezvous with the Lockhart River barge. A forklift truck was transferred to the smaller vessel to move pallets of chilled food into the community's own containers, and fuel for the local power station was pumped into tanks on the landing craft-style barge.

The shipping route through the inner reef area can run close to shore, through narrows and within a couple of hundred metres of exposed reefs.

It's an interesting coastline and the seaway is quite busy with yachts and other cargo vessels. Gofton says some travellers have been back four or five times because they enjoy the run so much.

Late on Friday, the Trinity Bay has left Cairns, and at first light on Sunday morning, there was Cape York itself – the northernmost tip of Australia. There's a small island just offshore and from the deck, the narrow passage was clear to see.

Arriving by sea is a great introduction to the Torres Strait, as the ship slides past an increasing number of islands – James Cook named them after days of the week. Then into a blue-water channel, close to Hammond Island and the beach suburbs of Thursday Island. Horn Island is the first stop and the ship's tall crane is quickly at work, transferring supplies to other Sea Swift vessels which will take them to the outer islands. The travellers gather to watch the unloading; grey nomads for the most part, refreshed and relaxed, looking forward to their next adventurous experience in this friendly, historic and interesting far northern outpost of our country.

Philip Hammond and Mark Calleja travelled as guests of Sea Swift Ltd.