Thursday, June 21 - Cooktown's Finest

This morning we had some plans to talk to the city council of Cooktown. This city is amazingly beautiful, and not seen by many. I said we drove a long time on Wednesday, that's because this place is far North of Cairns, closer to the Cape York Peninsula. Also, here is a picture of Australia vs. the US in size, it surprised me when I first saw it.

Cooktown relies mostly on tourism, however unlike Cairns, tourism is not booming. There is maybe two streets with businesses occupying lots but the architecture is beautiful and the shore is full of history. My friends and I walked along the shore for about 2 hours I'd say in awe of the town's artifacts. First, here are some photos of us on top of the Grassy Hill, a hill showing most of Cooktown from the top. Absolutely beautiful. You can also see the river leading to the ocean looking like a snake. The tale is that a snake slithered through the land, creating the river and he curled up in the ocean, creating one of the mountains.

A councilman from the town took us to the end of the shore of Cooktown. This was absolutely beautiful, so beautiful my friends and I went back at sunset. There was a Powder Magazine, or storage house, from a long time ago still preserved. Here are a few pictures, the first has a perfect spot for tanning on that large flat rock with the view of the ocean horizon:

 If you look at the picture on the right, above this text, there is a bit of water in between the man-made shore. This was a recreation area for the public a long time ago. People could swim and fish off of it. Really neat to hear about some of the history while looking around.

After learning much about Cooktown, including touring the town and its new community center, we stopped at a James Cook University accommodations that were actually in Cooktown. We listened to another speaker, ate lunch and decided that the rest of the afternoon, we could explore Cooktown. US friends and I decided we were going to walk around the town and see what it had to offer. Before we left, we went back to the caravan park to drop everyone off except us, and found some wild wallabies!

Sharon gave us her cell phone and told us to call Matt if we needed anything. We were good to go! We stopped at the grocery store first, an IGA (Independent Grocery Association??) and bought kangaroo sausages for dinner. (YES I did try kangaroo! It was really good, and is really good for you!)

Then we began walking toward the shore. On the way, we saw Jackey Jackey's Coffee-- claimed to be the best coffee in North Queensland. We didn't try any though, they closed early :( The interesting thing I found with this was that later on the shore, there was a plaque speaking of "Jackey Jackey" being one of the only aboriginals to survive some kind of battle, from what I can remember. So, that must be why that little coffee shop is so important :)

This town had some amazing architecture that kind of reminded me of Old Louisville. Here are some pictures of what we found on the shore at sunset.

We went back to the caravan park and had some amazing pasta and garlic bread, I was so relieved. I was ready for something other than BBQ! More for you later, Cheers!