Cooktown

Cooktown now lay within our grasp. We wanted for more supplies and a charge of our batteries (Camper trailer batteries that is - we by this time have had a very restful trip, thank you for asking) so on we go.

We were noticing with each 50km we go up that the temperature and humidity are more and more becoming quite Darwin like, so we were less and less inclined to want to do very much of anything strenuous.

The rain forest is changing too as we go, with less under-story and a bit more grit and red earth beneath our feet.

The trip had taken its toll on our poor old bike rack (and the poor old bikes that were on it) We had the rack reinforced in Yippoon, but as you can see, it has just decided to become droopy elsewhere.

 We found another engineer willing to 'have a go' at it,  and soon enough we were upstanding types again.

We came into Cooktown itself and found a really nice place with most of the services we required and a wealth of history from Queensland's very early days.

The exhibits in the museum were very interesting, telling the story of Captain Cook's encounters with the local indigenous and the town's boom through the gold rush and the bust to follow when the gold ran out.

But most of all, Cooktown was just beautiful. There is a high hill within the town that has a 360 degree view over the harbor inlet and the town itself that was quite outstanding at sunset.

We did make one surprising discovery at Cooktown. That is that no one seems to know how to cook!

We thought we would go our for dinner at the local RSL (yes I know... we were always only gonna get meat and three veg... but!) and had the singularly most dreadful plate of goop that I have ever seen in all my travels. Interestingly the staff were chipper and cheery and were keen to know at every opportunity how we were enjoying our meals (We opted not to tell the truth).

The following day we thought we would grab some Chinese at the dinner, which was almost the equal of the night before. So if you are reading this and you can cook, fame in your own lunchtime lay at the end of your spoon in Cooktown!

Here are some more nice shots from the Area