Cape York Travel Guide
Cape York accommodation, Cape York activities and attractions, Cape York maps, transportation to and around Cape York - the ALL NEW Jasons Cape York Destination Travel Guide is your complete visitor guide for Cape York.
Cape York Peninsula, otherwise known as The Tip, is the northernmost point of mainland Australia in Tropical North Queensland. From The Tip it is only about 140km to the New Guinea mainland, and many of the islands that dot the Torres Strait are accessible from Cape York by boat.
The Cape York region is one of the largest wilderness areas in the world that remains relatively untouched, it covers about 207,000 square kilometres -- a little smaller than the state of Victoria. The infertile soil around Cape York is remarkably hard to work with few commercial crops succeeding – one of the reasons Cape York is still such a wild and sparsely populated area. The eastern edge is rainforest, and fringed by the coral gardens of the Great Barrier Reef. West of the Great Dividing Range the land is mainly eucalypt woodland, scrubland and grasslands.
The wet season runs from November to April, and the annual rainfall is significant, so visitors should remember to bring wet weather gear. Cape York Peninsula has a number of rivers weaving their way through the landscape, in fact, The Tip contributes as much as a quarter of Australia's surface runoff. The road to Cape York becomes impassable when the various rivers fluctuate from almost dry to overflowing in the wet season.
The Uw Oykangand, Uw Olkola and Pakanh peoples are the traditional owners and occupants of much of the interior of the Cape, around the Mitchell, Alice and Coleman Rivers. Many now live in communities scattered around the Cape. Visitors can trek to ancient Aboriginal Rock Art sites at Quinkan Rock Art Reserve, where thousands of years of Aboriginal culture have been recorded in ochre and clay paintings.
Closeby is The Iron Range is the highest of some low hills on the eastern side of Cape York, noted for its unusual tropical rainforests, which feature a number of species only found in New Guinea, such as the Palm Cockatoo.