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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| This boat would have been almost in the identical location the Endeavour was beached. |
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| The mountain peaks were regularly covered by interesting cloud formations |
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| 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.
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| Smoke from gun salute. |
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| Wonderful background sunset whilst the band were entertaining the audience. |
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| Belly dancing provided by the locals |
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| 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.
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| We both made it in this picture of the original Endeavour Anchor and cannon |
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| Lovely looking stairs. Note the plaque to the right side |
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| It was worth the trip up the stairs |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| The first kangaroo shot by Cooks men for research & probably food |
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| 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.
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| There were many slippy patches driving in |
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| Viewing our setting |
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| Looking towards the coloured sands in the distance |
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| 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.”
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| 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.
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| Great sunset above the coloured sands |
We liked Elim Beach enjoying many a
stroll along the endless beaches.
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| 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.
