Day 171 - Saturday - 17 June - Onto our town - Cooktown

Day 171

Saturday

17 June 2017 – Finished the book All the Light We Cannot See, this won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. I can see why it was chosen, even though I didn't find it particularly appealing. I found I really had to slog through the story line and became too confused with characters and time sequences.

Cairns – Cooktown

Time to move on again. We were awake at 7am but happy to stay in bed and read for a while before eventually making the call and getting up. Paul went off for his shower while I organised breakfast and began stowing things for take off.

We finished up what we could and then moved the van outside to load the car. I booked in for a couple of nights on our return and let them know we were expecting mail and at 9am we were on our way to Cooktown, a four-hour drive.

We had to drive back over the mountain and past Kuranda before arriving in Mareeba where we fuelled up and then continued to trundle down the Mulligan Hwy.

The drive took us through Mount Molloy and Mount Carbine, both small country centres with a main street on the highway. Just as we left Mt Carbine we passed a large free campsite being well used. I even spied an azure kingfisher, happily sitting on a road sign. I really wanted to stop and take photos, but there was nowhere to pull over so we continued on.

Shortly after we had a steep climb over a mountain and then of course a decline with the van handling it well. The clouds came in over the mountains but cleared once we passed over them and it was warm and sunny as we continued further north.

At 12.40pm, we stopped at Black Mountain Lookout, park of the Black Mountain National Park. From this spot we could see the large black boulders that were stacked one on top of the other. It was an interesting structure, but there was more than one. It is basically an old mountain range that is slowly crumbling away. 

We were glad for the quick stretch of the legs before making our way into Cooktown 20min later. We checked into the caravan park and set ourselves up in a great big grassy and shady spot, perfect. 

After setting up the van, we had lunch and took some time out to regroup before driving into the town and parking near the fishing jetty. We got out checked on what people were catching and then began our walk along the main street, Charlotte Street and the Endeavour River front. 

There were many info boards and historical markers along the stretch. One marked Captain Cook shipwreck; this just happened to occur on the 11 June in 1770 and then, as a stroke of coincidence, on the 17 June 1770, yes today 247 years ago, he finally came ashore.

I stood on the steps created for Queen Elizabeth when she visited in 1970, 200 years after Cook ran aground.  We took note of the old buildings, as we walked past the various shop fronts

Playing on the Musical Ship

making it to the other end and returning along the other side of the road.

The sun was beating down and making us thirsty, so we stopped at the pub and enjoyed a drink. I was interested to see some old photos on the wall, including a picture of Krys Powalski and the giant croc she shot in Normanton. I pondered as to why the photo was on this wall and not in Normanton with the giant sculpture to verify that it really was THAT BIG!

When we were all done, we returned to the jetty. There were many more people trying to catch their dinner. Paul checked out what was being caught and then we returned home to enjoy the cheese we had bought at Gallo Dairyland yesterday and to read outside. It should have been peaceful but somebody checked in with their noisy kids!

We did our best to ignore the commotion and then at 6pm we drove up to Grassy Hill Lookout to check out the view. Unfortunately sunset was a little earlier and we missed the best of it, but it did give us a fair idea of what to come back for in the morning.

We did another run to the jetty to see if it was worth fishing later in the evening and then returned to have our dinner. I had a face time conversation with Bec, catching up on the goss, it was great to see her and the family.
We sat enjoying the peace of the van, Paul read while I finished up the photos and then we both retreated to bed for the night.