Friday 21 June 2019

9 - Cooktown & Region 10/6 - 19/6/2019


Entry 9           Cooktown and Region 10/6 – 19/6/2019

Leaving Cooktown our targeted destination was a station stay – Endeavour River Escape promoted as Luxury Bush Camping. About 30 minutes later, after travelling around 15 kilometres we were all set up in beautiful surroundings. We sat outside gazing around at our soothing setting when we were delighted to see two Azure Kingfisher birds perched in the nearby trees monitoring us. They were soon accompanied by a couple of Spangled Drongos birds flittering about chasing butterflies.


Down the hatch with one butterfly


There were plenty of insect activity around us and we enjoyed walking around the property inspecting the rather large red ruby passionfruit with a few weeks of maturing time before becoming ripe for harvesting.




It was nice having the use of a camp kitchen where Mary cooked up a beautiful pork roast, which we stretched out to last over four meals.



With the weekend approaching we thought the Cooktown Discovery Festival, focusing on the landing of Caption Cook in the year 1770 sounded OK with plenty of organised activities, so we decided to relocate back in Cooktown. We considered it would be easier to retreat to the caravan if the weather deteriorated and in turn, simpler to get back out in amongst it when the weather cleared. True to the current trend, the weekly weather prediction was for up to 2mm of daily rain and as it transpired each day, we did get wet.
It was a Friday, with the program schedule starting at 2pm with a variety of activities into the evening. We woke to the normal overcast skies and a splash of rain providing a couple of wonderful looking rainbows.
Holding the caravan door, hoping for a pot of gold to appear inside the caravan door.


Ironically, a couple of hours later the clouds started to disperse welcoming some beautiful blue skies. It was the best blue skies we had seen in nearly two months. We drove into town assessing the location of different activities, strategically parking our 4wd nearby to the evenings opening ceremony and we caught the free shuttle bus back to our caravan where we had a bite to eat before catching the bus back to the activities.
We explored the main street, viewing some of the stalls and activities before making our way to the evening’s main entertainment.
This boat would have been almost in the identical location the Endeavour was beached.


The mountain peaks were regularly covered by interesting cloud formations
Cooktown sunset
We collected our chairs from the 4wd which happened to be in a nearby parking position, taking a seated spot near the stage to hear the last of the official speeches and then we enjoyed watching the entertainment provided by a solo singer, a march past of 17th century dressed soldiers who performed a gun salute, belly dancing, fire twirling and the Townsville Army Band put on a splendid performance of traditional music and later rock music into the night. At one stage a group of 17th century dressed soldier’s marched past the stage taking a position high up on a nearby building and fired off a gun salute. On hearing the loud bang, a dog from in the nearby crowd came running at speed towards us, pushing our legs apart and positioned itself under our chairs.

Smoke from gun salute.


Wonderful background sunset whilst the band were entertaining the audience.

Belly dancing provided by the locals

Fire twirling by the locals
We slept soundly probably due to participating in a different type of activity to our normal lifestyle. We woke early to the sound of our alarm and jumped on the week-ends free bus at 7 am (bus stop for the week-ends activities was about 20 metres from our caravan) where we travelled to the botanic gardens for a scenic guided bush walk with 3 botanists. We watched a street parade, checked out the markets again, spent time in the James Cook Museum with another general look around at available activities before catching the bus back to our caravan for an afternoon siesta.





We both made it in this picture of the original Endeavour Anchor and cannon

Lovely looking stairs. Note the plaque to the right side

It was worth the trip up the stairs

View of the building from the front



We learnt to appreciate the significance of Cook’s 1770 mission on the Endeavour named sailing ship. It was accompanied by Joseph Banks a botanist who was a wealthy man in his own rights. Banks had talked the British Admiralty into letting him travel to Newfound Land, Australia, with his party of botanists and other scientists totalling 10 people whom Banks paid about 10 thousand pounds to the admiralty. It was the first-time a botanical collection of Australian flora and fauna had been recorded with a wealth of information obtained about Australia making for historical Australian history. The Endeavour had struck the great barrier reef suffering significant damage, requiring immediate repairs. It was beached for 7 weeks at a river mouth now known as the Endeavour River at a location now known as Cooktown. Banks whom has some various plants named after him of the likes of Banksia, collected over half his specimens whilst repairs were being conducted.

We were back on the bus travelling to the evening’s activities with a title of “Indigenous Showcase.” It was another superb experience.




Some great story lines, if you did'nt do the right thing the evil spirit will hunt you
It was another good night’s sleep, we were up early, driving ourselves into town for an 8 am start where we participated in titled, “Laughter Yoga,” another different, interesting experience primarily focusing on good breathing, improving one’s endorphins inducing good feelings. Next it was a re-enactment of “Captain Cook’s Landing,” at Cooktown with its 61st year of re-enacting Cook’s experience.




The first kangaroo shot by Cooks men for research & probably food


The actors 
We restocked our pantry and were on our way to our next destination about 75 kilometres north by mid-afternoon. We had pushed ourselves to experience as much of the festival activities as we could, needing to move on after staying our permitted three nights at the race course free camp - as pointed out to us by the council inspector who recorded our caravan and tow tugs registrations each evening at around 5 pm.
We travelled north through the Hope Vale Aboriginal Community lands setting camp at Elim Beach. We were in bed by 7.30 pm almost instantly sound asleep waking around 7.30 am. It appeared our bodies were in need of some R & R.
Elim Beach camp ground was run by one of the elders (Eddie) of the Hope Vale Aboriginal Community. It had a nice setting with tall paperbark trees near the beach front, further back some open grassed areas which was surrounded by more tree covered camp areas. The amenities consisted of a couple of flushing loo’s and a couple of cold showers in a building structure that possibly wouldn’t be legal anywhere else. It was a nice setting and we were in need of a few quiet days, or a more appropriate description, a few quiet hours, sort of.
There were many slippy patches driving in

Viewing our setting

Looking towards the coloured sands in the distance

You can see the coloured sands in the distance between the tree trunks
The sort of, refers to the mid-afternoon waves of new arrivals that would start to arrive with mud-covered vehicles full of hyperactive, self-focused people returning from “that must do iconic trip to the tip of Cape Yorke Peninsula.” By 10 am the next morning they would all be gone leaving us with a serene peaceful environment. One of these people spoke to Steve describing our setting as peaceful unlike the upper Cape Yorke Peninsula with their words, “it was pandemonium.”



Much nicer with the mob gone
There were some coloured sands on the nearby beach providing an enjoyable walk. Though the high humid conditions made for very damp and weary bodies after our walk. We both tried the cold showers to freshen up after our walk, finding it to be refreshing but rather chilly for us.




Great sunset above the coloured sands
We liked Elim Beach enjoying many a stroll along the endless beaches.

We saw plenty of coconuts sprouting


For 2019 this was as far north in Queensland, Australia we planned to travel. It was time to execute a U-turn and start heading south with our planned next location for exploration the Daintree region about 350 kilometres via road. We allocated 5 days travel time line for arrival at the nearby Daintree region.

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