Cooktown and Beyond

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Cooktown named obviously after the famed explorer himself is the place where Captain James and his crew beached the Endeavour in the estuary and effected repairs after coming to grief on the outer reef. The river on which the town is situated bears the name of Her/His Majesty’s famous barque and this quaint little frontier town owns an important part of Australian history.



Apart from being the gateway to the Cape York Peninsula and the last major town before the top for supplies, maintenance etc it is also replete with a rich history that can readily be accessed and enjoyed. The James Cook museum housed in the beautiful old convent building was a fascinating discovery of the person and achievements of one of the worlds truly great navigators, so complete was his charting that they lasted in excess of 150 years before being updated. The museum also gives an interesting history of Cooktown and the things that have helped shaped it, like the Palmer River Goldrush, Chinese immigrants and in later times the pastoral industry.



There is also a fair spattering of natural beauty in the local environs, the lookout over the city and estuary is worth the climb and some great bush walks to isolated coves and bays are dotted around the town as well. We enjoyed 4 days there, making the final preparations for our push up the Cape. One particularly enjoyable day was a drive out to the coloured sands at Elim Beach about an hour or so from Cooktown and out through the Hopevale Aboriginal Community. The road was little more than a sand track at times and we seriously wondered whether we were on the right road when there was one of those wondrous moments, we crested a hill and there before us was the turquoise waters of the bay, it was just beautiful.



We soon found our way across some mud flats, thankfully the tide was out and then several kilometres along a deserted beach to the coloured sands. We felt so isolated, the scenery was just spectacular, the whiteness of the beach sand and the rich and diverse colours of the sand in this natural quarry like area just off the beach contrasted powerfully with the deep blue of the sky and the sparkling azure of the waters of the bay. Local aboriginals out in the bay looking for dugong rounded out this glorious scene. We stayed as long as the incoming tide would allow us and the beauty of that place lingers with me. On the way we also visited Endeavour and Isabella Falls and a great day was had by all.



Back in Cooktown itself we were also keen to get our boat onto the Endeavour River to check out the local crocodiles, in doing so we almost got our selves stuck on a sandbank, thankfully the tide was coming in and not out and we managed to get ourselves free. To our delight we saw a small croc and then finally a large one, he must have been about 12 or 13 feet so we motored over to get a closer look. As we approached he moved from the bank into the water and started swimming straight toward us, our bravado quickly disappeared and we made off in the other direction as fast as ‘Origami’ would carry us. LOL!



Soon enough it was time to leave Cooktown and start our trek up the Cape itself, we headed back up towards Hopevale but this time instead of going right we turned left onto Battlecamp Road and into the bottom half of Lakefield National Park, our aim was to drive through Lakefield then out to Laura where we would overnight. We couldn’t stay in the park because of the dog and as a result decided to push on further up the Peninsula Development Road to Musgrave Station. This was a great camp spot with a little river that we could get wet in and soon we had our first camp fire blazing and dinner cooking in the camp oven. The kids had fun with some sparklers and we did long exposure photos with them and burning sticks, it was a great night. It surprised us with how cold it got overnight and we were glad that we had dug our doonas out the night before.



Next morning we continued up the Penisnsula Development Road with the intention of making Bramwell Junction roadhouse, this is where the Overland Telegraph Line track starts. We arrived in plenty of time to set up and I was keen to have a crack at Palm Creek in just the truck as we had decided for safeties sake to bypass the southern part of the OTL as it was nigh on impossible with the camper trailer. Like a kid in a candy store I headed up the OTL, crossed the first creek with ease and then arrived at Palm Creek, this pulled us up quick smart. It was a huge muddy drop off onto a sloppy muddy bank then into the creek for about 10 metres then up the steep (though with no jump ups) Northern exit.



There was some people camped at the crossing and we talked with them they had needed to winch themselves up the southern side and we talked about how to go about the crossing. Jen jumped out to video and the kids and I decided we would give it a crack. There is no option but to launch into it, hopefully you have selected the right gear and everything goes according to plan. The drop off was frightening a good 600mm vertically onto a muddy bank and there is no way to ease your self down, once over the edge gravity does the rest and the 3 tonne cruiser dropped over with a bang, we were committed then and needed to give it some berries so the back end wouldn’t get stuck on the drop off, it came down with a thud and then it was down the 20 metres or so of thick muddy ruts and into the creek maintaining momentum as we hit the creek so we had plenty of speed for the exit on the other side. Stuff was flying off and out of every hiding place in the car as we gunned it up the other side and to the top of the exit. I had a grin on my face like the Cheshire Cat and thought that wasn’t too bad but the return run South was going to take every inch of my driving skill and the ability old ‘Betty White’ ( what we call our Cruiser) had.



So we turned around and pointed our nose down the Northern bank: selected second low and lockers front and rear and hit the gas. We hit the water but needed plenty of speed for the long muddy slope, at the top of that there was a flat section about the length of the car before the jump up. The mud was full of logs and rocks and branches that people had used to assist getting traction and they were banging and clattering as we screamed up the hill, wheels spinning, turbo roaring and us getting thrown from side to side as I tried to maintain direction, we made the top then hit the drop off, the left front wheel lifted up but the right buried into the bank and we came to an abrupt stop at a 45 degree angle.



We took stock and found we could back up a few metres without going back down the slope and tried a few more times to get enough momentum to get our selves out, each time we failed. There was mud everywhere and it looked like we were good and stuck and would need to winch out. Will was over it by now and was on the bank with Jen, a bit to hairy for him now! It was here that we found, that for some inexplicable reason, the winch would not work, thankfully the guys camped there were happy to help us out, we also upon talking deduced that the front locker wasn’t working also. Some mudside repairs were the order of the day, all the bumps and corrugations had made the front locker solenoid wire loose and i made a hasty repair on that and thought I would give it a go again with this working, also found a few big logs to put in front of the right hand front wheel to take the vertical angle out of the deep hole that it was in. We backed up a few metres again, then hit the gas, the front locker made all the difference and this time the old girl crawled up the drop off like some giant white bug, the sound and feeling off it all was just sublime! We were out. Thank you’s were made to the people camped at the crossing for their help and then we headed back to Bramwell, me as happy as Larry: Betty White was a bit worse for wear, a log had pushed right through the passenger side step and ripped off the checker plate and I was missing the extension mudflap on one side and the whole mudflap and extension on the other (war wounds)! I’d got my fix though and was now happy to bypass the southern part of the OTL and just tackle the Northern section, but that is another story!



Steve, Jen, Zan and Will

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