Best of Torres Strait
Sailing out of the Great Barrier Reef and into the Torres Strait, the ship rounds Cape York, the northernmost point of the Australian continent, which Aussies simply call "The Tip." This remote promontory marks the confluence of the Coral and...
Not far from Cape York, Somerset is the long-abandoned settlement of the larger-than-life Australian pioneer Frank Jardine who came here in 1864. His was the first permanent European settlement on the Cape York Peninsula, an attempt to police a...
As the ship sails west from Cape York, you’ll see a number of islands off the northern tip of the peninsula. It's a view much like the one Captain Cook saw in 1770 during his first voyage of discovery aboard the Endeavour. Among the small...
Thursday Island may be one of the smaller Torres Strait Islands, but a deep, protected harbor made it the most populous of the chain. Its 2,600 residents include the original Aboriginal and Melanesian cultures along with a multicultural mix of...
Just west of the Torres Strait, the ship sails through the Arafura Sea en route to Darwin. During the last ice age, when ocean levels were much lower, the Arafura Sea didn’t exist. The shallow continental shelf was above water, and the Torres...
