Cooktown, the northern most point of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, is also one of Australia's most historically significant township.

It is the place where, in 1770, Captain Cook, in desperate need of safe haven, beached his ship the 'Endeavour' to make repairs on the extensive damage cause after foundering the reef.

It is also the place where the kangaroo was discovered and very well described by Sir Joseph Banks who was part of the expedition.

Closer from us, one hundred years ago only, gold was discovered on the Palmer River. To serve the mining camps a new port and community took shape. Its name: Cook's Town. After the gold declined the town still maintained a community of around 400 people.

Today Cooktown is still a remote location that I perceived as 'out of the time'. At the time I am writing these lines, there are only two possibilities to reach Cooktown by road.

The first option is to drive from Port Douglas to Daintree, take the barge to cross the river, reach Cape Tribulation and then continue the coastal road up to Cooktown. This road which is probably the most scenic and interesting one but is also restricted (from Cape Tribulation) to 4WD vehicles only.

The second option, is the inland road that is going via Mt. Molloy, Mt. Carbine and Lakeland. The road is probably not as scenic as the coastal one, but nevertheless offers some good views and lookouts on this part of the Great Dividing Ranges. As I am not driving a 4WD vehicle, it is this second option that I chose.

To cross the ranges, the road is quite winding and has several good climbs and descents. The time needed to reach Cooktown from Port Douglas (or Cairns) is about four hours. It is of course quite dependent of the condition of the still unsealed part of the road.

Works are progressing and we can expect completion of the road in the next few years. (I am not giving any date here as I heard different ones).
Anyway, when I took this road (August 2003), about 50 kms. were still unsealed but in a 'not too bad condition' and had no problem to reach Cooktown with my conventional mobilhome.

It is also one of these places where fences are exceptions and where you can have stock crossing on the road. Better to take care and keep your eyes opened!!!

The improvement of this road and its nearly completion was, during my visit, at the centre of a polemic well described by an article published in The Cairns Post Journal. The completion of this road project will of course make easier the access to Cooktown and most probably, Cooktown will lose its current unique character.

On July 29, 2003 The Cairns Post journal home page title was:

Cooktown says no to being the next Port Douglas

In his article 'Leave Us Alone', Jordan Baker highlight the change that is happening in Cooktown and the worry of the population. The following extracts from his article provides you some idea about the polemic.

"As the property boom spreads along the Far North Queensland coast, some are predicting the beautiful frontier town of Cooktown will be the next Port Douglas."
...
"But the property boom is worrying many Cooktown residents, who fear development could destroy the town's laid-lack character for ever."
...
'The reason why we love it here is because of the lifestyle at the moment and no one here wants to see it change".

And even if the article concludes on Cooktown news website editor words saying,

"It's still cut off from the rest of the world, you've got a four-hours drive to get there", we can still ask ourselves if it will be sufficient to protect this very special place.

Fortunately, we still had the chance to discover a small town, with a unique character that could have made a perfect scenery for 'Bony', the famous Queensland inspector, the main character of Arthur Upfield's novels.

Cooktown, a town without any traffic lights and with only few traffic signs implemented by the police so that the locals know at least what they look like when going out (at least, this is how it was, with some sense of humour, presented to us by one the locals :-)) ).

The question now is probably, what can we do in such a remote and 'isolated' location?

Well, don't worry, there is plenty to do and it will be only a question to chose your activity between several proposed ones: fishing, walking, sightseeing, reef exploring, ... If you are there for few days, I am sure you will not be bored. We unfortunately spent only two days in the area and I can only present here below a partial view of these possibilities.

The first day we decided to stay in town and visit few of the local places. The first visit was for the James Cook Museum. The museum administered by the National Trust of Queensland has of course several displays closely related to James Cook venue in the region. It is, for example, featuring the original anchor and one of the cannons of the Endeavour. The museum is divided in several sections and houses collections on maritime, pastoral, Palmer Gold fields, Indigenous and Chinese history.

I was personally interested by the display highlighting some extracts from the 'Endeavour' journal written by James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks. An edition of Joseph Banks journal is also available for sale at the front desk, in the museum shop. I bought it and really enjoyed reading it, following the adventure of the Endeavour sailing along the East Coast of Australia, discovering and naming several of the places we visited during our trip. It is amazing to imagine how they discovered the region in 1770 being forced to beach the ship after it has grounded on an uncharted reef.

After spending a while in the museum we decided to visit the Botanical Garden located along the Finch Bay Road. This beautiful place is covering around 154 acres of native and exotics planting. It also includes the Nature's Power House which is located just at the entrance of the garden.

The Nature's Power House is a place that can be divided in two main sections. The first one is a very good exhibition about snakes, crocodiles, barramundi, and some other local species. Based on Charlies Tanner work that dedicated his life recording information about reptiles of Cape York Peninsula, the exhibition has been created by the Queensland Museum.

The next section is dedicated to the late world-renowned artist Vera Scarth-Johnson. It displays a priceless collection of botanical illustrations of over 150 local flowering plants.

As a complement, the Verandah Cafe, is a coffee shop offering refreshing drinks, lunches, brunches, ... that you can enjoyed on the outside terrace while watching wallabies grazing around.

The place is also marking the entrance of the Botanical Garden. A nice place with stone pitched waterways and shaded paths. The area was neglected for 70 years and it is only in the 1980's that it was restored. Even if the area is probably more interesting when more water is present to fill the waterways, we appreciated the place and enjoyed its quietness.

The Botanical Garden are also the start for several walks. We chose an easy one, the one heading to Finch Bay. Without forgetting to take some water with us (free bottles of water for walkers are available at the Verandah Cafe) we are starting our walk to Finch Bay. The is not difficult and most of the time you benefit from the shade provided by the trees.

The effort made is well rewarded when reaching the destination, a long white sandy beach with nearly nobody.

The locals are used to swim at the northern end of the beach only. Wading in the creek running onto the beach is surely not advised, as estuary crocodiles may inhabit it.

After a rest, enjoying the scenic view, we are back on the track to return to the Natures's Power house where we will have a light lunch. Here, as most of the places I visited in Cooktown, I must underline the kindness of the people we met and how helpful they were.

But the day is not yet finished and the next visit on our list is Grassy Hill. Captain Cook climbed the hill at several occasions to view the surrounding reefs enabling him to navigate a safe passage out after repairing his ship.

If you are looking a local map, you will probably noticed that the road is marked as 'unsealed' but no where on the map nor on the road sides, you will find an indication that it is a 4WD restricted section. And in fact it is not. Conventional cars can be taken on this road. The only sign at the entrance of the road advises you that the road is not suitable for vehicles longer than 6 m.

Nevertheless I am advising you not to take this road with a mobilhome. I did it, I will never forget this experience and will never do it again. Far too dangerous!!!

Anyway, the lookout at the submit of the hill provides you an amazing panoramic view of Cooktown, the Endeavour River and Coral Sea. It is something to be seen. It is also where the Lighthouse is located. The lighthouse was built in England and ship to Cooktown in 1885. It served the community and shipping for 100 years until it was made obsolete, and then restored by the Lions Club. The lookout is also a good place to catch the sunset.

Another good place to catch the sunset is from the Bicentennial Park. The park was opened in 1988 and is the setting for the annual re-enactment of Cook's landing. It is from this place that we watched the sunset and it was indeed very pleasant to sit there, imagining what could have been the place in 1770 when the Endeavour reached it.

Instead of eating a fish and ships while watching the sunset, as suggested by one of the mosaic bordering the walk path, we ended our day with quite nice meal taken at the "Seagren's Inn" Hotel.