Cooktown, Qld

Day whatever, who knows, they all blend into each other…

Another beautiful day spent poking around the environs of Port Douglas. We ended up at the town end of 4 Mile Beach, which is patrolled and everything. The water was just right, cool enough to be refreshing but warm enough to be comfortable. Not much in the way of a wave, but great fun just pretending to be body surfing.

We went out for dinner, thinking that if we went at 6pm we’d get in to somewhere nice, but no, everything is chock-a-block! We had to go a bit more upmarket and had dinner at Finz where we had a beautiful meal.

And then it was morning again and we got up early and took off for Cooktown, which is about 300km north of Port Douglas. You have to head back up Rex pass (think Clyde Mountain only bigger) from Mossman and no sooner had we started when we started getting ‘look-out’ signals from oncoming traffic. Sure enough, there at the bottom of one of the sharp and steep u-turns was a small car smashed into the rock-face, unfortunately it was also upside down. The two occupants were dazed and wandering about and plenty of helpers organising traffic and help.

We continued on, turning off at Mt Molloy and heading toward Mt Carbine, which appeared to have 1x hotel and 1x petrol station and not much else. Further on we crossed Battle Creek, site of one of the most infamous massacres of Aborigines by the new settlers – battle my eye, the natives were unarmed and at point blank range, according to native reports.

Pretty soon you start to climb up the ranges again and first stop is “Bob’s Lookout” which has stunning views down the biggest valley I’ve ever seen.

On, on and on. Drove through Lakeland and then stopped to look in wonder at the Black Mountains, which look like someone has made a giant heap of big black chunks of rock. It’s actually the remains of lava that pooled up under the (then) surface, cooled and cracked. The cracks filled with dirt and water and eventually the land over the laver eroded and the rocks fell apart into these big blocks.

Finally made it into Cooktown, which was nothing like what either of us expected. It turns out to be smallish, but clean and tidy and pretty in its own way. They had a market on in the park which was a distraction for 30 seconds, and a huge monument to Captain Cook who beached the Endeavour there in 1770 to repair the damage he’d done by driving into reef disguised as a bunch of cute little white waves in the middle of the ocean. Careless!

Cooktown itself exists because of the goldrush on the Palmer River in 1873. All the people and equipment came in through the Endeavour river and all the gold was shipped back through the same port. Oddly enough, they had only just set up the tents when they decided to erect this monument, which must have cost a packet as it al came from Brisbane.

While the town was flourishing, the Catholic Church built a convent, which fell into disuse during WW2 and was eventually given to the historical society, who restored it and made it into quite a superb museum. They even have one of Endeavour’s canon and its original anchor, whch had been jettisoned at the reef in the attempt to get the boat unstuck.

Anyhow, we made it back by night fall, pretty tired but happy to have ticked Cooktown of the ‘must-see’ list.

Cooktown, Qld

 Here's another snap that I like, nothing to do with Cooktown :