Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula, far north Queensland, Australia. Cape York, at the tip of the peninsula, is the northernmost point of mainland Australia. At its tip it is only about 140 km to the New Guinea mainland across the island-studded Torres Strait. The west coast borders the Gulf of Carpentaria and the east coast borders the Coral Sea. Cape York Peninsula is approximately 137 000 km² in total (which is larger than either Greece or England), but with a population of only about 18,000.

Geographically, it an extremely eroded, almost level plain, with some very low hills on the eastern side. The highest of these form the Iron Range, noted for its unusual tropical rainforests, which feature a number of species, such as the palm cockatoo, otherwise found only in New Guinea. The soils are remarkably infertile even compared to other areas of Australia, being almost entirely laterised and in most cases so old and weathered that very little development is apparent today (classified in USA soil taxonomy as Orthents). It is because of this extraordinary soil poverty that the region is so thinly settled: the soils are so unworkable and unresponsive to fertilisation that attempts to grow commercial crops have always failed.

Climatically, Cape York Peninsula is monsoonal, with a wet season extendng from November to April and a dry season from May to October. Annual rainfall is high, ranging from over 2000 millimetres in the Iron Range and north of Weipa to about 700 millimetres at the southern border. There are many rivers, amongst them the Pascoe, Jardine, Wenlock, Archer, Holdroyd, Mitchell, and Staaten. Because it is uneconomic to build sealed roads or bridges through the sparsely settled peninsula, road transport is possible only between June and October since the rivers become completely impassable during the wet season. In fact, Cape York Peninsula contributes as much as a quarter of Australia's surface runoff - indeed it produces more runoff than all of Australia south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

It is 430 km from the Bloomfield River, in the southeast, across to the west coast (just south of Kowanyama), and some 660 km from the southern border of Cook Shire, to the tip of Cape York.

Some of the world's most extensive and ancient rock painting galleries surround the tiny town of Laura, some of which are available for public viewing. There is also an impressive new Interpretive Centre from which information on the rock art and local Aboriginal culture is available and tours can be arranged.

There are extensive deposits of bauxite along the west or Gulf of Carpentaria coast. Weipa is the centre for this mining activity.

Although much of the Cape is sparsely populated, there are settlements at Cooktown, Lakeland, Laura, Coen, and Weipa, and Aboriginal communities at Wujal Wujal, Hopevale, Lockhart River, Injinoo, New Mapoon, Umagico, Old Mapoon, Napranum, Aurukun, Pormparaaw, and Kowanyama. Torres Strait Islander communities on the mainland are Bamaga and Seisia.

The main industries are tourism, mining, fishing and cattle.

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