Cooktown

We hummed and hawed about whether to go to Cooktown or not, but then some friends Tam & Matt had meet in Airlie Beach said they were there and there was a festival going on over the weekend to celebrate Captain Cook – he landed in June 1770, so there was all sorts of festivities – markets, music, a busking comp, a spaghetti eating comp and reenactments of historic stories of the town, the gold rush and Captain Cook.

Not people who like to miss out on anything, we packed up and hightailed it up the Mulligan Highway to Cooktown to see it all for ourselves.

The reenactments didn’t pull a huge crowd, but there was people on horses and the playing out of gold panning and selling and weighing the gold all the while a group of ladies sat off to the side ready to do a bit of business.

There were singers, we ate ice cream and Larzy lost a tooth… she was sure it was going to come out while I was with them. It fell out onto the grass, so there was some fossicking to find it, but she came up with the goods for the tooth fairy – who paid handsomely I’ll just add. We thought she’d lose it eating an apple or carrot or something hard, but no… ice cream.

There was also bubble blowing and face painting – they wouldn’t do anybody over 18….. I asked.

We sat on the lawn and listened to the collective singers from all around the area and they sounded fantastic – especially the lady with the guitar. I didn’t catch her name, but she had an amazing voice!

Have a listen…

Alara really wanted to go in the spag eating contest but we got there just as the kids comp was finishing, so when there wasn’t enough adults in the big people comp, they asked if any kids wanted to join in and this amazing little girl walked up there and took her seat amongst mostly grown men and a couple of grown women.

Such a legend! Watch here…

Once all the festivities were over, we explored the rest of Cooktown and the surrounding area…

Up to the Cook look out… out to the Black Mountain… lunch at the iconic Lion’s Den Hotel… a quick Look at a waterfall and then we did the first bit of the Bloomfield track that heads back down to Cape Tribulation so Matt got to try out his 4WD skills. A+ 4WD skills were excellent.

The next spot to explore was the Cooktown Cemetery. I love looking around an old cemetery and this one is really interesting. People from all over the world are buried here. The earliest we could find was 1860.

I also love reading the headstones – my fave: Florence Rose Aisthorpe – “a battler and a lady”.

Our last stop: the Cooktown Museum. This building used to be a school run by Irish Nuns – the Sisters of Mercy. These poor women turned up in Cooktown in their wool habits. They wouldn’t have known what had hit them.

The building has been through it all with cyclones and being left in ruin for decades. It was only after the WWII when Queen Liz was coming out for a visit. She was going to be in Cooktown for about an hour, and they all thought – what are we going to show her… so within months, this building was completely restored – an amazing feat.

That staircase is original. The little sign on the right of the staircase is a quote from one of the students saying that they were never allowed to use those stairs. They had to use the spiral staircase around the back.

Then just like that my time with Tam, Matt and Larzy was over (for now, another meet up is already in the works).

I’m missing my new best friend already.