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Published: September 7th 2013
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The weather didn't do Captain Cook justice.Meh this weather is giving me the shits. And I think we have both gone off - a bit like three day old fish - we are tired and probably been traveling too fast.Couldn't wait to get out of the lions Den .... It waa crap. So we headed off early towards Cooktown willing to forgo brekky just to get out.Within ten minutes of leaving we encountered the thing I love best. ... Volcanic rock a whole mountain of disintegrating volcanic rock to be precise. I loved it. Its name is Black mountain and boy is it black and it's a volcanic plug of granite columns that through the sheer volume
of the wet tropics rain over millions of years has crumbled down the hill. It looks like a massive digger scooped it all up in a pile and left it there. The surrounding mountains all have vegetation on them. This massive mountain is about the size of mount cootha in Brisbane but completely denuded. Seeing this was a great start to the day. We soon found a turnoff to a place called Archer Point the road led through an indigenous community and opened out onto a coastline of desolate beauty. The weather didn't do it justice. Wayne was happy, there were 4wd Tracks all over these grassy headlands with interesting volcanic outcrops strewn all over them. What a brilliant camping spot it had high rolling grassy windswept hills that stretched all the way down to heaps of sandy coves - all had crocodile warning signs. The views from here look backward toward Cape Trib. There is a stumpy little lighthouse beacon with magic views and a derelict wharf which looked like a
place where old time smugglers would deliver contraband. It kinda reminded me of those isolated coastlines of the books you read about pirates and smugglers. I didn't want to leave here but the weather was really awful. Cooktown beckons.Everything you'd want to know about captain Cook is here. It requires walking and would have been more enjoyable but for this godawful rain.The town itself is really pretty with wide streets and historical buildings of a bygone era when gold ruled and made the wealth of the town. This was the main port for the Palmer River gold fields. There are monuments everywhere mostly to Cook. The grassy hill above town has a lighthouse beacon and a
monument dedicated to old Jimmy. It's an amazing view of the entire coastline and the Endeavour River when he had to repair the boat after hitting a reef at Cape Trib.The townsfolk share in the celebration of Cook as the circular pavement that takes you to the monument has the names of the People who live there. The "River of Life" path is a great place to start as embedded in the pavement are plaques that are colorful with stories and anecdotes about the ordinary everyday events that go on in the town that are of some interest. The History Centre was well worth seeing as it is the archive of all things about Cooktown from Cooks arrival to present day.Helen Street is the best street in town - and
it goes without saying that it would be. Here located in the old Sisters of Mercy Convent (let me tell you there is no Mercy in any of them) is the Cook Museum. It's a mishmash of Cook, Catholic Girl School (shudder) Nuns (triple shudder), the Chinese community, and the indigenous community. Apart from the obvious catholic smell of the place (a distinctive smell that assaults the nostrils - I know this smell as in the course of my work I have encountered that smell at every catholic school I have visited). It's a really interesting place. The indigenous version of Cooks landing is really interesting. The artifacts are amazing and a lot of care has gone into the collection. I was delighted to read inscribed under Cooks words about his adventures on the high seas a song I used to sing as a child. "captain Cook chased a chook all around Australia lost his pants in the middle of France and found them in Tasmania"On leaving Cooktown I would have to
say that the best thing I saw was the monument with the cannon. In 1885 The council wrote to the premier of Queensland to ask for protection against the Russian Invasion. Their wish was granted...... a cannon, three cannon balls, two rifles and one officer was sent. That constituted the army. He must have been a mighty mighty warrior. So we left Cooktown and made our way over to the Battlecamp road towards the Lakeland. We thought the Battlecamp was going to be an amazing four wheel drive journey. Suffice it to say that the road is about 70 % sealed and really easy to drive on in fact it's really a two wheel drive road now. I reckon thats as a result of the Natural Disaster Road Reconstruction Program. But the journey is great the scenery is spectacular. The road surface is so new that the signs have not been replaced so we missed Endeavour Falls and Isabella Falls. <br style="color: font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;
line-height: 18.88888931274414px;" />We were really in croc territory and a visit to any of the numerous lakes was treated with a certain amount of trepidation. Lake Emma was pretty with lots of white water birds and lilac and white lilies. The whole National Park is low lying and a lot of water flows through here. Finally we settled into Kalpower Crossing Campground for the night. We were up high over the creek but there are a lot of salties living here so I was constantly keeping my eye out looking for them. the number of waterholes harbouring crocs are innumerable. Not long after we went to bed we both heard the sound of an animal (presumably a cow) screaming in pain. I thought that maybe it had been taken by a croc. So did Wayne but neither of us mentioned it til the morning,
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