WITH a big, long wet season continuing into April over most of the Cape, and the Peninsula Development Road stilled closed, my wife Shelley and I decided to head out west for a couple of months to explore some more of Queensland’s magical Channel Country. If you’re not familiar with this region, it’s characterised by vast ‘downs’ plains, with few …

CAPE York is so many things to so many people! Exploring, camping and fishing in a wonderfully remote tropical region with hugely diverse landscapes, the four-wheel-drive challenges and corrugations, the fantastic fishing, the amazing culture and history and so on. Explore Cape York Underlying everything of course is the unique nature of the Cape, that is what makes this remarkable …

THE wet in the cape continues. Nothing massive yet but there have been widespread heavy falls over most northern and inland parts, less along coastal regions in the south so far. However, March statistically is the wettest month for most of eastern Cape York, so there may be much more to come yet. As a follow on from last month, …

THE arrival of decent storms in October and November across much of the Cape signalled a likely early onset of the monsoon season – as predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology. Because the country is initially so dry at this time of year, the first runs in rivers and creeks are not usually sustained and levels drop over the following …

MY final article on destinations in southern Cape York focuses on the magical Cape Melville area, tucked away in a remote corner of the east coast. This place of stunning scenery features picturesque coastlines and islands set against the rugged backdrop of the Melville Range’s huge granite boulders. The main camping area is within Cape Melville National Park at the …

LAST month we explored the magnificent country around Cooktown, both south and north. This time we’re diverting down Endeavour Battlecamp Rd and heading towards the wonderful Rinyirru National Park. It is well worth stopping to view the picturesque Isabella Falls, about 6km in from the Hopevale Rd. Now bitumen in places, Endeavour Battlecamp Rd winds through the impressive Battle Camp …

SOMETIMES people just don’t have enough time to do the full ‘tip trip’ – that’s just a reality. Others have done so but want to return to Cape York to further explore this amazing region. There’s an abundance of smaller areas to visit, and one of the best is the southeastern corner, from roughly the Bloomfield River north to Bathurst …

WELL, with all the who-haa that’s been going on, here at Cape York we locals finally got a late OK from authorities to travel within the Cape’s ‘biosecurity region’. So, my wife Shelley and I decided to tackle the 8-hour lap from Cooktown to Weipa to visit our kids, and of course get out for a fish in that magical …

THE dry season is not that far away, and as time goes so quickly, now’s as good a time as any to start preparing for a Cape York pilgrimage. The following is based on the experience of living most of my working life on the Cape, including living and working from a bush camp for 10 years, which was brilliant …

IN his book Down Under, American author Bill Bryson claims the one animal that instils fear into Australians is the crocodile. Our estuarine crocodile is a huge aquatic predator that certainly has a fearsome reputation for ‘taking’ humans, even though such ‘attacks’ are actually quite rare. They absolutely have to be respected! Talking to people visiting the region, it seems …