Our time at The Tip and Punsand Bay

The drive from the Jardine River Ferry to the town of Bamaga only takes about half an hour or so, and the caravan park at Punsand Bay is about another half hour drive further up. I am still so surprised at how accessible it all is. I always though Cape York was so remote and 'full on' and we had packed enough dry food and UHT milk to feed an army accordingly. But actually there's a bakery and a supermarket and really we could have just packed food for a few days and re-stocked once we got here! Also, all the photos of Cape York driving are taken on the Old Telegraph Track. The Penisula Development Road and the Bamaga Road are fully developed. Admittedly they are not sealed (though there are little bits of bitumen to prevent total insanity) and it can be pretty corrugated and rather sandy at times. But we were surprised to realise that you could actually get a 2WD car all the way up to the tip!

We had decided to split our camping time between one of the three places near Bamaga and Punsand Bay up the top. There are actually five separate indigenous communities up here, but they are all quite close together. It's literally a 5 minute drive (on bitumen) between Seisia and Loyalty Beach and Bamaga. Punsand Bay is further north and it has a swimming pool, which was the major draw card for us. 

Since we hadn't bought anything which required a powerpoint (Dunc's second battery was providing 12vts for all devices and the fridge) we got an unpowered site which was right on the beach. Tough life for some...

Dwayne and Anna and their children Rhiannon, Caleb and Billy had joined us with their enormous camper trailer. They had made the drive from Tasmania up to the tip in TWO weeks! They were supposed to be at Punsand Bay for 2 nights, but we were having so much fun together that they extended their stay for another 2, making for a rushed drive south for them. Whoops.

We started with a drive out to see "The Tip". We could have gone on the developed road, but we had Dwayne and his Pajero who could rescue us if needed. So we decided to tackle the "adventure 4WD" shortcut to the tip. I'm sure it had nothing to do with Dwayne calling Dunc a "great big pussy"... It was only 6km but lots of fun, and it meant that Baby Bertha got to do some full-on 4WDing on the cape. And we got to collect some wood for a campfire too!

I'd read about the hike required to get to the actual tip, and we packed a lunch and hiking boots in addition to the fishing rods. In the end, it was only a short scramble, but over lots of rocks, so I'm glad we had proper shoes. We did the usual pics and the rest of them all started fishing. Dwayne is a fishing nut (who else would drive from tassie to the tip?!) and actually hooked a little black tipped reef shark. He was reeling it in and it jumped out of the water a few times which was incredibly impressive. Right when it looked like it was tiring and about to be landed, a bigger shark came and gobbled it up! Doh!

Lexie finally got to catch her fish (it being HER turn and all) but the little stripey grunter was too small to keep.

I spent my time making calls, because yet again we had service in such a remote location! I also took some time to read all the plaques stuck to the rocks up there. There were quite a few memorials to people who had obviously had their ashes scattered there. Unexpectedly, there were a few whose ashes were scattered there by family members to realise their dream posthumously. It struck me that so many had wanted so desperately to get to the tip but never did. And we had. Every now and then I get a thrill at the realisation of what we are actually achieving, and this was one of those times.