Rivers that run from the Tablelands escarpment to the Gulf regularly flood in the wet season, making travel on the unsealed section of Highway One along the coastal plain to Queensland impossible.

[3] The 'Coast Track' follows the path of cattle drovers of the late 19th century as they moved herds from north-west Queensland to stock the new stations of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley.

Tony Roberts writes how the local tribes went from almost total isolation from European Australians in 1870, to a decimated collection of displaced and defeated groups, over a single decade.

Entire tribes such as the Wilangarra, including women, children and babies were massacred, and most adult males were killed, by police and quasi-police groups, and by drovers and station workers involved in the cattle droves of that era.

[6] A famous story about Borroloola concerns one (police) Corporal Power, who appealed to the Carnegie Trust for books to stock the town's library.

[7] Bill Harney recounts how by 1923, when he was involuntarily detained there, it had fallen into decay: he found Sue's Mysteries of Paris in shards, Plutarch in the lavatory of the Macarthur Hotel, and a "splendid edition of Shakespeare" being used to light campfires.

[8] David Attenborough visited Borroloola in 1963 to film what became episode 2 of 'Quest Under Capricorn', the 8th and final series of the BBC's Zoo Quest expedition documentaries.

He described having joined the library having arrived at Borroloola one rainy season some years prior and read many books, including the complete set of works by W. W.

[3] In 1977, the Yanyuwa people were the first to successfully lodge a claim under the new Federal Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 over Borroloola and the Pellew Islands.

[citation needed] Yanyuwa man John Kundereri Moriarty, a recipient of the Order of Australia (AM) and a UNESCO Achievement Award, was born in Borroloola.

Their boat ramp provides access to the mangrove-lined waterways of the McArthur estuary and the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The Fishing Classic competition, held over the Easter weekend each year (weather and road access permitting), marks the end of the wet season.