A short driving day: first, across the Jardine River on the ferry, then a visit to several WWII sites, before ending up at Pusand Bay at the very tip of Cape York.
We woke up late, and packed the tent quickly. Even though it was only 7:30 in the morning, it was already 26C and steamier than Saigon... after all, we're now closer to the Equator than Saigon, Bangkok, or Manila. Since the campground was right at the Jardine River, we didn't have to travel far to the ferry, all of 50 meters or so, and Chris and I got on the first group of cars across. It took three trips to get across, and once across everyone started grousing about the ferry prices. It costs $88 for the crossing, including the return trip (including GST), and I estimated the crossing at about 120 meters, so that makes about 35 cents per meter! OK, it's not just for the ferry, but other council things as well. Chris said "just consider it an access fee" and I think that's fair.
Once across, the roads became very good, with little corrugations and sweeping curves. Our first stop was at Muttee Heads, which had a wonderful beach with a view across the Endeavour Strait to the Torres Strait Islands. It was the first beach I've seen here on the Cape that looked truly inviting. What a pity there's not much you can do except admire the view and get a tan--safely back from the beach! You don't want to get too close to the water; as with all beaches and rivers along the coast here, the very large saltwater crocodile lives in these waters, and you just don't want to end up as his lunch.
After that, we drove back up the hill to an old WWII radar site for a few minutes, then back down to the main road towards Injinoo Airport. Just as the road turns from dirt to blacktop, there's a small car park where you can walk to the wreckage of a DC-3 that crashed in 1945. It's decomposing rapidly, and there's not much to protect it, but it was still pretty interesting. We drove by the small airport, then around on the other side to see the very few remains of a Kitty Hawk aircraft and some other aircraft, also from World War II. Those didn't have any plaques on them, so it was hard to tell what they were. Once done, we made our way back and stopped at Bamaga for lunch.
Bamaga was interesting, I was expecting a kinda seedy town but it was fairly decent, with new buildings and sidewalks, and quite a well stocked supermarket--Sue noted that they stocked gourmet lettuce in the produce department! We tried looking for champagne to have on the visit to the Cape itself (and the northernmost part of Australia), but the stuff in the bottle shop was too basic, so Chris settled for some Bacardi Breezers (lime flavor) that was overpriced.
On the way out of town, Bill noticed that Colin's Landcruiser had a low left front tire, so Wayne got his third tire to fix. It was pumped full of air and sorted out at camp--like two of the other three, dirt had worked its way under the bead and broken it. All that needed to be done was clean the rim and reseat the tire.
Then it was a quick 25km to the Pusand Bay Campground. This place is quite well set up--it's right on the beach, with a nice outdoor terrace under large shade trees, a pool, a restaurant, a bar, and even electricity in many campsites! Beer may be $4.50 each here, but you don't have to make the 50km round trip to the store to get supplies. For someone looking to get away from it all, this place has it. Plus, it's quite a bit cooler, less humid, and less buggy than our last two campsites. I'm not dripping sweat as I write this.
Chris and I decided against the campground's restaurant, and used up some more of our old ham for sandwiches, then we drug our chairs over to the beach (all of a 15 meter walk) and watched the sun set as we drank our beer. Mmmm... beer.