Port Musgrave is a shallow, almost enclosed, estuary, forming a bay on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

 in Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. The region, which contains a large section of the Tropical North Queensland area, stretches from the city of Cairns north to the Torres Strait...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Two major rivers, the Wenlock and the Ducie

Ducie River

The Ducie River is a river of the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. It rises in the Great Dividing Range, flows through stringybark woodlands, tropical savanna plains and wetlands, and enters the Gulf of Carpentaria on the western side of the peninsula at Port Musgrave just...

 discharge into it. The surrounding area is rich in freshwater swamps, while the estuary itself has tidal flats and mangroves, including stands of the Nipa Palm

Nypa fruticans

Nypa fruticans, known as the attap palm , nipa palm , and mangrove palm or buah atap , buah nipah , dừa nước , Ging Pol in Sinhala in Sri Lanka and gol pata , dani . It is the only palm considered a mangrove in the Mangroves Biome...

. It is an important breeding area for Saltwater Crocodile

Saltwater Crocodile

The saltwater crocodile, also known as estuarine or Indo-Pacific crocodile, is the largest of all living reptiles...

s. The small Aboriginal

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 community of Mapoon

Mapoon Aboriginal Mission Queensland

Mapoon Aboriginal Community is located at Port Musgrave, western Cape York in Queensland. A Presbyterian mission was established at Mapoon in 1891 with the aim of providing education and health services to the Aboriginal people. By 1907, under the Reformatories Act, it was operating as community...

lies on the southern shore of the bay.