Thursday Island

By 8am our tour is off on the ferry from Seisia to TI as they abbreviate Thursday Island, just 70 minutes' away and a stone's throw from Papua New Guinea.

Life is easygoing, laidback on TI, just a few square kms in size, where our bus was waiting to trundle us off to the Hill Fort, nurtured in colonial splendour to fire only one shot in anger. The site had great views and we took a look at the museum underground with all the history from pearl lugging, to the World Wars.

Later, we popped in to the flower garlanded cemetery with Japanese pearler graves; then on to the churches and grub time on the main street.

A fish and chips lunch at Bobbys was enlivened by owner Katherine giving us a little dress bag and free ice creams. Then a policeman served a sour faced local a warrant with his fish and chips. The chip shop is clearly where the action happens.

We took a wander along the scenic promenade.

We heard that a couple of months previously there had been angry Indigenous demos outside the local fisheries department office to protest a temporary ban on tropical rock lobster fishing because the annual quota had already been reached with six more months to go.