Bamaga, Queensland

A remote settlement of some 2,000 people, who are mainly Torres Strait Islanders or Injinoo Aboriginal Community members. Bamaga is so isolated, all supplies must be flown in. It also has the distinction of being the most northerly town on the Australian mainland. Most people who drive here do so (only in four wheel drive vehicles) in order to be able to say they have been to the most northerly tip of Australia.
Location: 61 km north of the Jardine River; 983 km north of Cairns.
Origin of name: reportedly named after an Aboriginal Saibai elder, Bamaga Ginau, who is said to have envisioned the settlement for his people, but died before it was founded.
Brief history:
Off the coast near Bamaga is Possession Island where Lieut. James Cook formally took possession of the east coast of Australia in 1770. Nearby Somerset (22 km north) was established in 1863 as the administrative centre of the area. In the same year brothers Frank and Alexander Jardine left Rockhampton with a mob of cattle to establish a cattle station at Somerset. It was even thought at one time that Somerset might become a major Singapore-like trading centre for north Queensland, but in 1877 its functions were shifted to Thursday Island.
Natural features: Bamaga Island; Badu Island; The Horn Island (Heritage Museum); Thursday Island (see separate entry); Possession Island; Cape York (32 km north); Gulf of Carpentaria; Jardine River National Park; Elliot Falls; Fruit Bat Falls; Gunshot Creek
Built features: town of Seisia (6 km north, Seisia Island Dancers; Jacky Jacky Estuary; Jardine River; World War II relics, including the wreck of a DC3 aircraft); Mutee Heads radar tower ruins; Bamaga Airfield aircraft wrecks
Heritage features: Possession Island cairn; Somerset ruins (22 km north)