12 August – Tuesday
In case any of you have been wondering, it is windy for six months of the year in Cooktown. For the other six months, it is wet and windy. It just blows a gale the whole day, day and night – no sea breezes that start about lunch time and settle at dusk! Even Captain Cook mentioned the incessant wind in his journal.
Cooktown is a small country town, with one bakery, newsagent, small supermarket, school, coffee shop, a couple of souvenir shops and restaurants, about twelve streets, many motels and Captain Cook. Our first port of call this morning was
Grassy Hill, which overlooks the mouth of the Endeavour River and the Great Barrier Reef, just off-shore. Cook also visited this spot a number of times to try to find a way through the reef. It was very windy. The track up the hill started out okay, rapidly gave way to gravel, then rocky – we ended up in 4WD. The views were certainly worth the effort.
After returning to the CBD of Cooktown (little joke there!), we did a wharfie (popular pastime with the locals evidently), parked and walked the Captain Cook trail. The landing site of the “Endeavour” is marked with a cairn, there is also the obligatory statue of Cook, plus a memorial. Also along the esplanade was a statue of a miner to represent the mining history of the district, and a wonderful musical boat. Leslie had a lovely time playing in this, banging all the various percussion instruments!
Of course, the main attraction is the Captain Cook Museum (surprise, surprise), which is housed in an old convent. The museum had a large section on Cook and contained a cannon and anchor from the “Endeavour” which were jettisoned after the ship struck the reef. The history of Cooktown was covered with displays featuring the indigenous people, the Chinese, the gold rush, local identities and, of course, the history of the convent itself.
After lunch, we discovered a white lipped green tree frog having an afternoon nap on the arm of a chair in the small barbecue area next to our caravan. Following a quick chat, which took nearly two hours, with our next door neighbours, we set out for the Botanical Gardens. These were established about 1880, not only to give the locals a nice place to have afternoon tea on their way to Finch Bay, but also a way to get rid of the Chinese market gardens. After this, no doubt the locals paid a fortune for vegetables to be shipped in! The gardens were rather interesting, with a combination of natural bush and cultivated plantings. A few scrub turkeys kept the ground cultivated and a mob of wallabies kept the grass under control. Unfortunately, the paths were covered with leaf litter, which meant having to worry about death adders as well as all the other snakes!!!
After leaving the gardens we drove to Finch Bay, braved the crocodile warnings to walk to the beach and were greeted by a couple of very friendly cane farmers from southern Queensland. While we learnt all about cane farming and subsequent problems, I was nearly in need of a blood transfusion after being discovered by the sandflies. We eventually made it to the beach, which was a beautiful bay complete with mangrove river (and crocodiles), and felt much safer as there was a lady with two dogs there as well. (Crocodiles eat dogs before people, in case you were wondering.)
The weather has been most unpleasant today, apart from the wind. Whilst it has only been about 26 degrees and not humid, we both found the day to be very draining. At least it isn’t frosty or snowing!
In case any of you have been wondering, it is windy for six months of the year in Cooktown. For the other six months, it is wet and windy. It just blows a gale the whole day, day and night – no sea breezes that start about lunch time and settle at dusk! Even Captain Cook mentioned the incessant wind in his journal.
Cooktown is a small country town, with one bakery, newsagent, small supermarket, school, coffee shop, a couple of souvenir shops and restaurants, about twelve streets, many motels and Captain Cook. Our first port of call this morning was
Grassy Hill, which overlooks the mouth of the Endeavour River and the Great Barrier Reef, just off-shore. Cook also visited this spot a number of times to try to find a way through the reef. It was very windy. The track up the hill started out okay, rapidly gave way to gravel, then rocky – we ended up in 4WD. The views were certainly worth the effort.After returning to the CBD of Cooktown (little joke there!), we did a wharfie (popular pastime with the locals evidently), parked and walked the Captain Cook trail. The landing site of the “Endeavour” is marked with a cairn, there is also the obligatory statue of Cook, plus a memorial. Also along the esplanade was a statue of a miner to represent the mining history of the district, and a wonderful musical boat. Leslie had a lovely time playing in this, banging all the various percussion instruments!
Of course, the main attraction is the Captain Cook Museum (surprise, surprise), which is housed in an old convent. The museum had a large section on Cook and contained a cannon and anchor from the “Endeavour” which were jettisoned after the ship struck the reef. The history of Cooktown was covered with displays featuring the indigenous people, the Chinese, the gold rush, local identities and, of course, the history of the convent itself.
After lunch, we discovered a white lipped green tree frog having an afternoon nap on the arm of a chair in the small barbecue area next to our caravan. Following a quick chat, which took nearly two hours, with our next door neighbours, we set out for the Botanical Gardens. These were established about 1880, not only to give the locals a nice place to have afternoon tea on their way to Finch Bay, but also a way to get rid of the Chinese market gardens. After this, no doubt the locals paid a fortune for vegetables to be shipped in! The gardens were rather interesting, with a combination of natural bush and cultivated plantings. A few scrub turkeys kept the ground cultivated and a mob of wallabies kept the grass under control. Unfortunately, the paths were covered with leaf litter, which meant having to worry about death adders as well as all the other snakes!!!
After leaving the gardens we drove to Finch Bay, braved the crocodile warnings to walk to the beach and were greeted by a couple of very friendly cane farmers from southern Queensland. While we learnt all about cane farming and subsequent problems, I was nearly in need of a blood transfusion after being discovered by the sandflies. We eventually made it to the beach, which was a beautiful bay complete with mangrove river (and crocodiles), and felt much safer as there was a lady with two dogs there as well. (Crocodiles eat dogs before people, in case you were wondering.)
The weather has been most unpleasant today, apart from the wind. Whilst it has only been about 26 degrees and not humid, we both found the day to be very draining. At least it isn’t frosty or snowing!
1 comment:
Lucky I wasn't there, the sand flies would eat me alive. Well, I had my fingers crossed for snow this morning, but unfortunately the Southern outlet opened up just as I was about to go to work. May be tomorrow. Shan
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