Coral Coast
The Coral Coast runs North from Cairns to the tip of Cape York, and includes the Cairns Beaches, Port Douglas, Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Cooktown and "The Tip" townships of Bamaga, New Mapoon & Seisia. For simplicity on this website we have taken a little license and excluded Port Douglas & the Cairns Beaches as seperate regions, and have added in the Torres Strait Islands as part of this region.
The region is massive and largely uninhabited except for small indigenous villages. Compared with the rest of the Tropical North Queensland region and apart from Daintree & Cape Tribulation, there is little tourism activity in the region. However that is not to say it's boring or uninviting - quite the opposite in fact - there is much adventure & excitement to be gotten from a trip into this territory particularly for those into aviation, 4wheel driving or motorcycling. The sealed road finishes - and the excitement begins - at Cooktown.
The easy access to this region is by air, unfortunately insufficient traffic makes the area unattractive for the major carriers. Instead there are a number of smaller locally based airlines operating out of hangers on the western side of Cairns Airport. Apart from Cooktown itself and Thursday Island, accomodation is probably a bit scarce and rough if available at all. One excellent way of seeing the area is to ride the mail plane - spend the day up and down delivering mail to Cattle Stations, Mining sites etc around the Cape.
Another easy way to travel the way is by water - passage may be booked on some coastal trading vessels travelling the area.
Apart from the above two options the bitumen only runs as far as Cooktown, after that it's 4wd or motorcycle - you need to enquire some areas may require a permit to enter.
There are dozens of 4WD drive companies operating tours to Cape York, but for a real holiday - why not take your own if you have one and tag-along with professionals.
