Enjoy the golden savannah grasslands and the monsoonal wetlands of this trek in this rather barren region of Australia. There are a variety of native animals and a diverse portrait of birds including herons, jabirus, brolgas, sarus crane and many other waterbird species that migrate here - especially after the rains.
A good majority of the trek is on the Burke Developmental Road with minor portions being on the Karumba Development Road, Kowanyama Development Road and Musgrave Strathgordon Road before hitting Peninsula Development Road before Coen. The majority of the journey is a true adventure drive with most of it being unsealed. Although some of these roads can be rough, it’s quite navigable by conventional vehicles with care.
The trek passes through beautiful scenery, including some old historic towns. Examples include: Normanton, which is well known for its diverse migratory wading birds and
Barramundi fishing and Karumba which sits on the mouth of the Norman River and is home to the Gulf of Carpentaria’s prawning and fishing industries and not to forget its stunning sunsets. Kowanyama, which means ‘the place of many waters’ is a culturally significant Aboriginal community town. This town is situated on the banks of Magnificent Creek and during the wet season, it’s not uncommon to have supplies flown in by air. There are many homestead stations olong the way including Dunbar Station and there is an old ex-fortress telegraph station now called Musgrave Roadhouse. Coen is a beautiful small town located on the old telegraph line that ran from Laura to Bamaga and is considered the last place north for supplies such as food, fuel and mechanical repairs before heading towards the tip of
Cape York.
How to Use this Trek Note
Click the "Map" tab below to see the route we've provided. Icons on the map are the POIs you'll need for navigation purposes. Be sure to check the list of Nearby
Places on each POI page.
If you'd like to save this information there are a couple of ways to go about it, depending on what you're actually after:-
- Ideal solution - download the ExplorOz Traveller App from Google Play or the App Store. The app enables you to carry the ExplorOz Places, Treks, & Maps data offline in your mobile device ready for your adventures. It is a complete mapping, navigation and tracking app. For more details, read our ExplorOz Traveller page.
- You can print a paper copy of the text using the print icon button shown above, near the social media buttons. For the best output it is advised to open each tab/section to load all images and artwork. You will still need to click open each Place page (listed in Where to Stay, What to See) to print off all available information.
- If you have a Hema Navigator or use Mapping Software such as OziExplorer, or TrackRanger AND you are an ExplorOz Member, then you can click the Download Trek button at the top of this page to obtain the raw data files (eg. GPX) for this Trek.
- If you're not a Member, or you'd like to batch download the entire Treks database you can obtain this by buying a product called EOTreks Route Files from our online shop.
