Cooktown Qld Saturday 6Aug2022

 Cooktown Qld Saturday 6 Aug 2022

From the Heritage Lodge and Spa at Diwan, right over the Cooper Creek from the Cooper Creek Wilderness Rainforest Walk, we headed north with a first stop at Cape Tribulation Beach. This iconic part of the Daintree hasn’t changed even one speck since we were here first in 2004 except that the Cassowary we saw that first time then was again absent, the little scamp. I really don’t know why its such a focal point, the beach is barely more than a tidal mudflat and as the photos attest, its fairly featureless. It’s main claim to fame is that the Cape was named by Captain Cook after he carelessly ran into a random reef after sailing safely in uncharted waters for three years. Or then again it might be popular because its as far as you can drive in an ordinary car (rental cars excepted - they can go anywhere) before you hit the Bloomfield Track - the short-cut through to Cooktown. The highway route is about 300km longer.

Cape Tribulation Qld

Our bus is of course a huge Mercedes 4x4 truck with a people-pod on the back and can, literally, go anywhere. Its just as well because even though the dirt road surface is in good condition, it has some really steep (1:4) gradients complete with three-point turns up and across the Davidson ranges. Its only about 30km long but takes almost two hours, by which time we have emerged from the ranges and the rainforest and stopped at Wajul Wajul, an Aboriginal community town, which also has a waterfall to go and visit.

Wajul Waterfall Qld

We clambered out to the falls, about a 100m over fairly rough rocks in the care of Francis, our guide. The falls are only small at this time of the year, being the dry season, but good enough for the obligatory snap or ten.

Further north we stopped at The Lion’s Den hotel for lunch. This is a very old bush pub from the late 1800s. It is so named, so the story goes, and I have to remind you that most of them are just that, stories, that some preacher fellow saw one of the young men, named Daniel, in the distance looking wistfully down into the mouth of the local tin mine and was prompted to think of a biblical story concerning Daniel and the mouth of the lions den. Or something like that. Apart from being of the extended ramshackle architecture school, it is covered in hand-writing in every conceivable place, except the toilets where it is barred. This story, which is quite believable, is that in the early days the tin miners would bring their pay cheque (a piece of paper with words that indicated that the person who signed it owed the person carrying it the prescribed amount of money written in full on the front, their pay, usually a month’s worth). Now as money as such was of little use to people in these places and certainly no safe place to keep it, the normal practice was to give your cheque to the hotelier who would keep tabs of your drinking expenses and pay you the balance when you left. Now, being of a distrusting nature, the workers took to keeping their own ledgers by writing down their pay and the cost of their drinks on the walls next to their favourite seat. Its just a quirky little thing that  I've seen in other remote places, and of course now every wanna-be vandal wants to write some pithy witticism to show they have been this way. Only now you get to buy a marker pen to do it and the money goes to the local charity, I think fire brigade in this case.

Lions Den Pub. Cooktown Qld

Lions Den Pub. Cooktown Qld

On toward Cooktown until we at last rejoin that main highway for the last few kilometres into town. But first a stop at Black Mountain, a huge mountain sized pile of black lava rocks that cooled under the earths surface and was later exposed by weathering. The blackness comes from a fungus that grows on the rock. It’s the only one around and is pretty impressive to look at.

Black Mountain. Cooktown Qld

On we go, lobbing into Cooktown at about 2pm, where we are given  quick tour and then dropped at the museum, which used to be a Catholic Convent from the 1880s. It centrepiece is an anchor and a canon from the Endeavour, recovered from the reef where Cook parked his boat for 24 hours 252 years ago. After a single lap of the uninspiring museum collection, we watched the slide show for another 55 minutes when we were finally picked up and taken to the botanic gardens, also established in the 1880s but abandoned after the town went belly-up when the gold ran out. It was reestablished in the 1960s and despite cyclones and droughts and things, is not in too bad a condition, a credit to the local populace.

Finally at last, after 4pm we are dropped at our hotel, where we all headed straight for the pool, which was just fabulous. It was damn hard to tear oneself out of that beautiful cool water and get ready for the sunset tour. This was conducted by one of the local tour people in a small bus, which took us up to the top of grassy-hill, which is now overgrown with trees and shrubs since they literally killed off the aboriginals who uses to keep the country clean and green via the use of fire-stick farming. At the top is a lovely 360º view and a really well looked after lighthouse. The lighthouse was one of six prefabricated in England and shipped out here and is one of only two left. The authorities replaced it years ago with location beckons on each of the reefs, and wanted to pull it down. I'm so glad that the local people put up a fight and saved it, and restored it, and keep it going. It is lit every night and is still used by some for navigation.

The sunset itself was a bit of a failure, but later as we were walking to dinner, that afterglow came up and was just fantastic to sit and watch. I’lll get a snap - next time.

Captain Cook's canon. Cooktown Qld

 

Lighthouse Qld

Sunset. Cooktown Qld