Dirk and Joke doing the Half-lap: Day 27: We attempted to conquer Mount Cook (but failed) (28/06/12)

Cooktown seemed to be a bit quieter than as we remembered it from 6 years ago. Still, the caravan park was full, and the streets were packed with caravans coming and going, and silver-haired couples sight-seeing. (The description “silver-haired couple” does not apply to us, of course, because we only have a silver-haired single: me. Joke’s promise to “go gray” during this trip has only materialised in some small spots, as yet.) The caravan park had a well-organised folder of Cooktown information which included a series of heritage and history walks which the tourist could do. We chose the easiest one: climbing up Mt Cook which dominates the town from the south. Climbing the 480 metre mountain in 95% humidity seemed to present no problem for us, so we drove out to the start of the track and got away. We were cheered by the fact that the Parks people had recently spent a lot of money upgrading the track. “Good on them!”, we said, “That’ll be easy!”

To misquote a Reformed book title: there’s promise and there’s delivery. Yes the track looked a cinch, yes it had been improved. But Queenslanders, as opposed to Tasmanians, consider walking track improvement to be a branch of road improvement. So they had brought this red gravel with little round pebbles which would not look bad at all on an outback goat track, and spread it over a very steep walking track up the side of a mountain. We were down to first gear, metaphorically, before we got to the first corner. A hundred corners later, with bruised shins and severe seepage of dignity, we said ”Enuff!”. A convenient boulder gave us a substitute for the top-of-the-mountain view we had craved, and then we beat a slippy-slidey, oops! bump retreat.

Joke walking on eggshells up Mt Cook

Convenient boulder without gravel

Joke putting a brave face on it

Our viewing rock

The offending outback road-base...

So we went to downtown Cooktown and strolled the main drag. This meant wandering alongside the Endeavour River, watching the fishermen (and –women), tipping the hat to Captain Cook, following all the inscriptions on the pavements and looking at the grand old buildings lining Charlotte Street.

The Powder Magazine

Tin Chinese

Cooktown Harbour

Cap'n Cook turned his back on us

The Post Office

Are the local vets a bit defensive?

Then we went to Grassy Hill lookout, where, a local told me, they had spent a million dollars to improve it, but left only 4 car parking spaces. There were 5. The evening view was grand.

Million dollar improvement, Grassy Hill

Million dollar imrovement continued - well-spent, we thought

Sunset view over the Endeavour River

And of course the lighthouse, sporting a new coat of paint since our last visit.

All the above happened on Wednesday, and so here briefly is Thursday’s story.

Back view of the caravan for a change - Cooktown Big4

Flowers laid on specially for our arrival

We set out to go down to the Bloomfield River, which is on the Bloomfield Track: the coastal route from Cairns to Cooktown. This is 4-wheel drive only, and we could see why, even though we didn’t do the toughest bit between the Bloomfield River and Cape Tribulation. Beautiful country, lush, green and mysterious. Every single creek crossing was a deep concrete ditch – all dry today, thankfully. We got down to the Bloomfield River at Ayton, drove upstream for about 7 kms to the Aboriginal community of Wujal Wujal and there crossed the Bloomfield River at a very tame crossing. Going back across we headed up to the Bloomfield Falls which were impressive enough considering the relative dryness. An ice cream at the Bloomfield Store, and then back home.