Editor Lyndon Keane says we need to ensure our southern cousins understand Cape York is open for business, despite the inexcusable incompetence which has resulted in the Jardine River ferry being left high and dry for a month at the start of the annual tourist influx. Photo: Supplied.
Because the headline or first paragraph is all many read these days to get their news fix, let me put the vital bit here in black and white: Cape York is absolutely, unequivocally open for business this dry season.
The news the Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council (NPARC) is set to pull the only link to the northernmost part of Cape York, the Jardine River ferry, out of the water for a month at the start of the 2025 tourist season for an “AMSA-regulated closure” has hit operators like an economic grenade as panicked visitors start cancelling trips amid fears they won’t actually be able to get their obligatory photos at the Pajinka sign on their road trip.
One NPA business told me they had been hit with a mass cancellation of four tour groups set to visit within a five-week period. But the confused abandonment and rescheduling isn’t isolated to the NPA. Tourists are pulling the pin left, right and centre across the Cape – from Weipa to Cooktown – because NPARC has inexplicably chosen the next month to undertake maintenance that was flagged by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority as kind of important in June 2024.
It’s impossible to read the report and not ask what has been going on with the ferry’s management over successive seasons. The ASMA report identified 15 operational, safety and engineering issues, including insufficient lifejackets aboard, a crew member unaware a vehicle was being loaded behind them while directing another vehicle, and waste oil not being captured to stop it entering the marine environment. But the standout oopsies are the hull repairs and replating AMSA suggests must be carried out within three months, according to the deficiency action code timeframes listed in the report. Issues originally identified by a marine surveyor in October 2020, mind you. I’m still waiting for a sensical answer from the maritime watchdog as to why it apparently then gave NPARC until 30 June this year to fix the hull dramas, despite the deadlines shown in its own report.
NPARC says the repairs were delayed because of issues sourcing funding to carry them out, but that woeful excuse doesn’t pass the sniff test for the community, nor the Cape business operators now set to bear the brunt of tourists venting their frustration by slapping shut their wallets and walking away from trips that are often years in the making. With the extortionate fees the council charges to use the ferry, they are raking in somewhere in the vicinity of $3.5-6.5 million in revenue each year. Where’s the money going? It’s evidently not being used on maintenance or upgrades of the Jardine River crossing infrastructure, so who’s sharing the millions when the money should be invested in a vital asset for the NPA community?
Let me say it again: Cape York is categorically open for business and ready to welcome tourists with open arms, despite the buffoonery and questionable backroom deals that mean a vessel old enough to have been used by the Ottoman Empire remains the preferred method of spanning a river on one of the most iconic tourist routes in the country.
If you’re reading this and thinking about rescheduling your Cape York trip because of the ferry farce, I implore you to reconsider. Come up, soak up our unique experiences, meet the characters who call the Cape home and have the time of your life. The dry season money you spend is literally the lifeblood of many small tourism outfits up here, and we know how to roll out the welcome mat to ensure your visit provides a lifetime of adventures, laughs and memories you can’t find anywhere else.
If I can remain the eternal optimist, this national embarrassment will hopefully convince the council and Traditional Owners vehemently opposed to the concept of a bridge it is indeed the best way forward, and that the sky won’t suddenly fall if the status quo is scuttled.
Who knows? Maybe the embattled ferry can continue to play a role in the region’s tourism sector long after it’s been decommissioned – you can never have enough artificial reefs for the diving market, right?
On behalf of our local tourism operators, the lights are on, we’re all home, and can’t wait to say g’day you when you roll into our towns on your 2025 dry season expedition to a part of the world you can’t fully appreciate until your feet hit the ground.
It’s hard to argue a bridge would do anything but provide a benefit to the Northern Peninsula Area when you look at the line-up to use the embattled Jardine River ferry at the peak of each tourist season. Photo: Instagram (take_me_adventuring).
