Torres Strait Islands

• Thursday Island is the main population and administrative centre.
• Horn Island host the primary airport a 10 minute ferry ride from Thursday Island.

Other inhabited islands in this group, are Prince of Wales, Friday Island, Goodes Island and Hammond Island. Possession Island is an uninhabited National Park in this group. These islands are a ferry/water taxi away from Thursday Island, or even Seisia on the mainland.

These islands are less visited, due to their being even more remote than the Inner Islands. Some require permits.

• Western islands - Saibai, Duaun and Boigu
• Central islands - Badu, Moa, Mabuiag and Yam
• Eastern islands - Warraber, Coconut, Yorke, Stephen, Darnley and Murray

The Torres Strait Islanders were the first Indigenous Australians to gain legal recognition of their ownership of the land. Traditionally they were fierce headhunters until the arrival of the missionaries (celebrated yearly throughout the Islands on July 1st as "The Coming of the Light".) Islanders are often very generous and keen to share their culture.

Residents of most of the islands are still Indigenous Australians (with the ratio of around 6 to 1). Non-indigenous residents are primarily on Horn and Thursday islands, and are often temporary, employed in education and health, policing and military, or hospitality.

Torres Strait Islander peoples have a distinct culture, history and lands and do not identify as Aboriginal. In fact, they are more ethnically Melanesian than their southern neighbours, although they were subject to the same kinds of discrimination under British colonialism. Unlike their southern neighbours though, their languages are still spoken today.

Thursday Island is the main administrative centre, with a population of around 4000 people on an island only 3.5 km². It has a permanently manned military barracks. Neighbouring Horn Island has the main airport, with air links to Cairns and light aircraft links to several other inhabited islands. It has a smaller population of around 600, but a much larger land mass of 60 km². Most residents of Horn commute to Thursday for work and education, and there is a regular ferry service between the two.

• Torres Strait Tourism office, 68 Douglas Street, Thursday Island, ☏ +61 7 4069 1336, fax: +61 7 4069 1845, admin@torres.qld.gov.au. maps and advice. 

Qantaslink has daily flights from Cairns to Horn Island. The two ferry companies that transfer to TI both meet every Cairns flight arrival, with transfers to the wharf, and connecting services to TI. From TI you can arrange a boat to some other islands. For some you'll need to get permission from the land council before you travel. The ferry costs $9 for the McDonalds ferry $10 for the Rebel ferry. The bus transfer to the airport costs more than the ferry, around $12-$13 each way.

Peddell's Ferries provides twice daily passenger transport by boat to Thursday Island from Seisia, on the mainland at Cape York. The services operate 3 days a week during the wet, and six days a week in the dry season. Check their website for up-to-date timetables and fares. Tickets can be booked online. Seisia itself is usually completely isolated by road during the wet season.

Sea Swift operate two freighters to many of the Torres Strait islands from Cairns and down the Cape as far as Weipa. The freighters carry up to eight passengers.

Those intent on a road trip can get a barge from Seisia on Cape York.

You can also get in from Papua New Guinea if you have your own boat. If you do so, you will need to check in with the department of immigration once you land.

Your car can be taken all the way up to Cape York on the mainland, but after that, you'll need to find some other way of getting to those islands. Note that while on a Mercador map the Torres Strait Islands might seem very close to Cairns, it's about 1100km from Cairns, which is greater than the distance between Barcelona and Zurich, or on an Australian perspective, Sydney and Brisbane.

Do mind that most of these roads aren't paved, and most of them are closed during the wet season. Going in dry season is the best time to take your car.

West Wing has scheduled flights to Murray Island, Darnley Island, Yorke Island, Boigu Island, Saibai Island, Badu Island, Kubin Village, Warraber Island, Coconut Island, Yam Island, and Mabuiag Island. These flights work around the Qantaslink flights out to Cairns.

If you have 4 or more people travelling, compare the price of a charter before booking the scheduled service.

The islands without airstrips usually still have helicopter landing pads. GBR helicopters operate charters from Horn Island, and between islands.

Scheduled ferries only between Horn and Thursday Island. These ferries also have bus connections to all points on both islands.

Water taxis are the easiest way to travel from Thursday Island to the neighbouring Inner Islands. Hammond, Prince of Wales, and Friday Island. You can also visit the unpopulated Possession Island and Wednesday Island.

• Wis Wei Water Taxi. 

This island is locally known as Bedanug and Bedhan Lag. In 2001 the Kaurareg people successfully claimed native title rights over the island, and other nearby islands.

Here Captain Cook claimed possession of the entire east coast he had explored for Britain, on 22 August 1770. Endeavour had reached the northernmost tip of the coast and, without disembarking, Cook named the last seen mainland Cape York. Leaving the Australian east coast, the battered ship turned west and nursed his way through the dangerously shallow waters of Torres Strait. Searching for a vantage point, Cook saw a steep hill on a nearby island, from the top of which he hoped to see "a passage into the Indian Seas". He disembarked, named the island "Possession Island", and claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory.

In his journal, he wrote: "I now once more hoisted English Coulers and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole Eastern Coast...by the name New South Wales, together with all the Bays, Harbours Rivers and Islands situate upon the said coast".

Today, it's the centre of a National Park, an area of 5.10 km2 (1.97 sq mi), established as a Protected Area in 1977, and managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.