We took the Ferry across from Seisa to Thursday Island, a trip of about an hour. It has a unique cultural heritage and we learnt quite a bit of it from our tour guide who was born on the Island and can answer just about anything thrown at her. She was great. Once that tour was over, we hopped on another ferry, about 10 min. ride across to Horn Island. Picnic lunch, a good look at the War Museum, which was really interesting, and then another tour with a local. During WWII Cape York was a key defence point against the threat of invasion from the Japanese Army. An American bomber base was set up and thousands of troops were stationed in Cape York. We had never really heard anything about how much of the war effort was concentrated in this part of Australia. Both Island tours were really interesting for us .Horn Island is the second most attacked location in Australia next to Darwin. 500 bombs were dropped on the Island between 1943 and 1943. A camp hospital was set up here and there were 9 nurses responsible for 5000 Australian and American airforce and army personnel.
All over Cape York and the Islands are the remnants of crashed planes, old radar towers, machine gun posts, fuel dumps. A mud map lets you do a bit of a drive thru the bush to find the crashed plane sites. We found it pretty fascinating to see. So much stuff, rusting away in the tropical rainforest. We wondered how much hasnt been discovered???
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