Cooktown was the Northernmost stop on our trip at 15⁰S, partly because of time constraints, partly because there doesn’t seem to be too much more up there and most importantly our car will not be insured if we go further!
We woke up to a grey, hot and humid day. The place we stayed at last night was great! It has only been open 4 weeks so everything was pristine. The husband was a builder and built the place himself, the wife has given up full time work to the run the place, it seems they are fully booked most nights.
After breakfast Andrew (husband) returned with a basket full of fresh, straight off the tree mangoes. They were delicious, not like the stuff they call mangoes in our stores. He also brought us a cashew apple, the fruit of the cashew nut that can be seen at the top. The fruit is very sweet when first bitten into, but with a VERY dry after taste. We didn’t try the nut as there is a poisonous layer between the husk and the nut.
We headed into town to see some of the older buildings and waterfront.
Cooktown Waterfront
One nifty idea we saw along the water front were shelters with “coin in the slot” cook tops!
Next we went up to the top of Grassy Hill where Captain Cook visited when he got “stuck” in Cooktown. This was also the site of an old lighthouse, in WWII the site was used as a radar and radio site for early warning of Japanese attacks.
We headed back down the hill for some groceries and petrol, then wound our way southbound along much of the same road we traveled yesterday. All along the route were termite hills, some small some large (2m/6ft tall). These mounds were built by ………. mound building termites! See here for details
When we came up this way yesterday there was a lot of smoke in the air, it was still there today but not so bad. This was probably the cause
We stopped for lunch at the Palm River Roadhouse which was meant to have a display of old gold mining equipment. Unfortunately I think the place has seen better days. There was no sign of mining gear!
After lunch we swung a bit further south onto a new (for us) road. The scenery changed from that of mountains and rain forests to large areas of agricultural flat lands where many crops are grown; peanuts, bananas, coffee, mangoes and a few we couldn’t identify.
We reached our motel late in the afternoon to be greeted at our room by Bruce. Hopefully you can read the inscription.
The trip back is not really planned out, we have covered off all the touristy stuff we wanted to do, with the exception of whale watching! We are now picking up local information as we travel on the less touristy routes. The trip up to Cooktown covered about 3200Km.