Cape York Peninsula
The Cape York Peninsula is Northern Australia's largest wilderness, with about half used for grazing cattle. At the same time, the relatively undisturbed eucalyptus-wooded savannahs and rainforests are now recognised and preserved for their global environmental significance. Although substantial portions remain pristine, industry, introduced flora and fauna, and overgrazing pose significant threats across the peninsula.
With the Gulf of Carpentaria to its west and the Coral Sea to the east, the peninsula is bordered by water on three sides. There is no clear landward boundary to the south. However, the official delineation in Queensland's Cape York Peninsula Heritage Act 2007 lies around 16°S latitude.
The peninsula's widest point is 430 km from the Bloomfield River in the southeast, across to the west coast just south of Kowanyama. It is around 660 km from the southern border of Cook Shire to the tip of Cape York.
In February 1606, Willem Jansz, aboard the Duyfken, was the first European to land in Australia near Weipa, on the peninsula's western coast, making the first reported contact between European and Australia's First Nations people.
Jansz arrived just after Luis Vaez de Torres made his way through the strait between the peninsula and New Guinea. Other Dutch navigators, including Jan Carstensz (1623) and Abel Tasman (1644-45) followed Jansz to the peninsula's west coast. James Cook and William Bligh were the first Europeans known to have encountered the east coast.
Overland exploring parties entered the region after Ludwig Leichhardt skirted its southern border in 1844, with Edmund Kennedy and the Jardine brothers bound for the top. Parties of prospectors sought gold across the region after James Venture Mulligan's discoveries of goldfields omn the Palmer and Hodgkinson Rivers.
Links to add:
Cook Shire
Coral Sea
Edmund Kennedy
Gulf of Carpentaria
Jan Carstensz
Jardine Brothers
Ludwig Leichhardt
Palmer Goldfield
Willem Jansz
William Bligh
