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Published: August 14th 2010
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There is a road from Cape Tribulation north called the Bloomfield track which keeps more to the coast, however it's strictly for 4 wheel drive vehicles. We took the longer, sealed highway, about a 300 kilometre trip to Cooktown. We left the lushness of the coast, over a mountain range and we were in the outback, dry and sparse with dry river beds, unfenced roads, roaming cattle. It was so nice to finally arrive at the end of the bitumen and back on the coast at Cooktown, where once more it's green and lush.
We have enjoyed our time here very much. The wind we encountered last time has stayed away and instead we have a beautiful sunny day with a slight sea breeze to keep us cool. Today we went to the very excellent James Cook Museum, housed in a 100+ year old two storeyed building which was once a convent.
A little bit of history:
When Captain James Cook was charting the east coast of Australia in 1770*, his ship, the Endeavour, hit a reef, which he called the Endeavour Reef just out from the cape which he (with some restraint it must be said) called Cape
Tribulation. He cleverly devised a way of wrapping a sail around the hull to make the ship watertight and intrepidly sailed it along the coast until they came to the mouth of the river which he named The Endeavour. They went ashore, at the area now called Cooktown, and it was here they stayed from June till August while repairing the tear in the ship's hull.
Cook's journal entries of his time here were enlarged on the wall - it was interesting to read of their amazement at the first sighting of kangaroos and other native animals and of the aborigines themselves, who he called Indians. It was also fortunate that they had an artist and a botanist to record everything. Equally interesting were the aborigines' account of the event, which has been passed down by word of mouth through the generations.
Once Cook and his men had finally left, the aborigines continued life as before until, 100 years later, gold was discovered in the nearby Palmer River and the gold rush began. The population swelled to about 20,000, 90% of whom were Chinese, many grand buildings were built including many hotels. Love this - one hotel was
Cook's tree
All that remains of the tree they tied the Endeavour to called The Sovereign until a cyclone came through and all but destroyed it. Then the locals called it The Half Sovereign. Eventually the gold ran out and the population dwindled to what it is today.
We spent a fair bit of time engrossed in all the museum had to offer, then went along the waterfront to have a very nice fish and chip lunch at a restaurant there with great views of the river and the mountains as the backdrop. I declined walking around the Botanic Gardens as my back was aching from the long trip yesterday. However, Doug walked through it, no flowers or the Cooktown orchid on display - the plants were mostly trees.
After another look around town, we are now back at the caravan park to sit under the awning or perhaps venture into the pool here. It's a beautiful afternoon. Tomorrow we head for the Atherton Tablelands and I only hope it will still be warm up there.
* though Captain Cook gets the kudos for discovering Australia, many maps he used were those of the Portuguese who charted the coast in the 1500's from maps drawn by the Chinese many years earlier and of course the aborigines have been here 40,000 years so no doubt the coast was well known to them years before Captain Cook
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