Cooktown

Cooktown we like it here and feel kinda chilled.  Its a big moment for the Red Elephants as this is as north as we get.  Lets face it Cooktown is Queensland most northern town and it does feel a bit frontier like.    There are loads of various 4wd around mostly pulling campers all covered in red dust and we know where they have been, "The Cape."  You could say so close yet so far as it is another 1000km from here and mostly on dirt corrugated roads.  We do feel a little bit envious and like we are missing out, but, we  will save "The Cape" for another time.   Who's in?

Spooky Black Mountain

Actually we are lucky to be here as on the way in we passed the Black Mountains where people have been known to mysteriously disappear.  SPOOKY!  The mountain s made from large black granite boulders.

View of the Endeavour River from Grassy Hill

The Coral Sea and way beyond Cape York

Cooktown is the place that Captain Cook in his ship Endeavour  became unstuck on one of the outlying reefs and had to spent some time here.  Apparently its always blowing a wind here and we have not been disappointed.  The town itself is only little, (for people reading at home I would compare to the size of Braidwood) and fronts onto the Endeavour River that is fresh water.  On the other side of Grassy Hill is the Coral Sea.

So what have we done…   a load of washing, swam in the pool, read a book, walked the river front.

It was on the river front walk that we came across 2 unusual things one being a musical ship and the other ,eek I am in scary crocodile territory although have not seen a live one yet.  Or dead for that matter.  We have also been up Grassy Hill to check out the magnificent view 360'  as I say the Endeavour River winding its way, the Coral Sea and the Cape whispering us north.

Grace playing the musical ship

Recent Sighting

Pete has been on a guided fishing expedition, but I will let him ramble about that.


Today we went to the Captain Cook Museum that was also a museum on anything Cooktown so it seemed.  It was housed in an old nunnery and convent school.  Interesting for us but maybe not so for the kids.

We also went for a drive to the famous Lions Den Hotel.  Have you heard of it?  We hadn't until a fellow traveller, yes grey nomad, told us about it.  The Lions Den is over 100 years old and seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but in fact in its time it was in the middle of somewhere, the gold rush.  Back in the day miners used to pin their pay packets to the walls and on the next visit use the money enclosed.  These days there is money stuck to the walls with peoples name on and all sorts of souvenirs people have left behind including signatures and messages left on the walls.  If you ever visit see if you can find the Red Elephants!

Lions Den Pub