July 24 - 26 - (Day 175 - 177) - Mount Molloy to Cooktown

Friday 24 July

We were intending to stay at Mount Molloy for 2 nights, but ended up deciding to move on to Cooktown. The rest stop wasn't the quietest place, being close to a road, although it was certainly quieter than cane trains rumbling past 30m away! However the cane trains, noisy as they were, were a constant sound whereas traffic is more variable.

The main reason, though, was that we'd bought a couple of power meters on eBay and these were waiting for us at the Cooktown Post Office. We figured Friday would be a better day to try to collect those than trying to do it on a weekend when it might be closed (which we later discovered was correct). So pack we did and on our way we got!

As we travelled we suddenly noticed the scenery had changed from rainforest to savannah! We had been told by the lovely council guy yesterday that we would notice quite a contrast once we had driven past a certain point but hadn't actually noticed straightaway. It might have been because we were distracted on other things like listen to a Sherlock Holmes but none the less we finally did notice the stark difference.



 The road was long steep and windy and had a few lookout points. Most of which are normally on the wrong side of the road and quite difficult to pull  into being on blind corners but this one below was a slightly larger pull off bay so got out to stretch our legs and admire the view.

Lovely view (not of me (Greg)) - but look how dry everything is compared to how it was at Mossman!

I can't actually believe we are so high up in Australia now. So far away from home.

 As we were travelling the boys were occupying themselves by drawing out battleships and enjoying the challenge of sinking each others ships while Bek read her book that she'd borrowed from Mossman Libraray. We were allowed to borrow 4 books on a Tourist card and hand them in anywhere on the list the lady gave me in the shire. So we'll probably hand them into Cooktown library.

As we travelled we came across some very strange looking hills! They were made up of lots of fairly large, loose, black rocks! No soil to speak of, just a massive pile of black rock - almost as though someone had dropped an enormous pile of coal on the side of the road! There was a lookout nearby and we saw it was aptly named 'Black Mountain'. It turns out these rocks were formed by magma which hardened and fractured once it came through the surface.

We arrived in Cooktown around lunch and headed for the local bakery before going to the post office to pick up our parcels.

It was a lovely warm day so we had a dip in the pool once we arrived and had set up.

The kids working on an impossible puzzle that Jude found in a book he's reading.

Saturday 25 July

Cooktown

We explored Cooktown today. On first glance some part of it seem pretty run down, however on the main street they have a few lovely old Victorian-era buildings. The town had quite the feel of Port Victoria, on Yorke Peninsula (if you've ever been there and know what that's like).

Cooktown is quite windy, and when you look on the map you can see why. It's only about 15.5 degrees below the equator, and right on the coast, so it's in line to pick up the trade winds which blow from the Tropic of Capricorn up towards the equator. It certainly wasn't blowing a gale, and today the wind was apparently quite mild, but it seems rare to get a still day up there.

Lovely old buildings along the Cooktown main street

Captain Cook landed here in 1770 as part of his initial survey of Australia, so there are lots of bits and pieces to commemorate his landing. There was a monument in the main street, as well as a replica of one of the cannons used on the Endeavour. At the James Cook Museum (which sadly was closed when we were there), there is apparently some interesting information on how the Aboriginals and Captain Cook made peace and helped each other.

While we were in town we came across a mini market that seems to happen every Saturday but we arrived later in the day so some of the stalls were starting to pack away but the coffee and donut stalls were still open just for us.

The Captain Cook monument

They actually have some really pretty beaches but you can't swim in them because of the crocs.

We came across this cool boat that was called the 'Musical Boat' and was set up with various pipes, metal and wood and rubber and you could tap or dong to make different sounds.

As you can see from this tree it was quite windy.

This photo was taken right at the mouth of the Endeavour River, looking north.

We then drove up to Grassy Hill to check out the magnificent view.

While we were there there was a slight incident where a car, reversing back up the road for some reason, drove its right wheels off the edge of the road! Quite a heart stopping moment! The poor lady of the car hopped out and watched as her husband stayed in the car while various blokes worked out what to do. Thankfully in the end they were pulled to safety and all was fine apart from being a bit shaken up and a bit of a close call. It's strange there is no railing to stop people from going over the edge as it's quite a drop off.

From there we drove to the Cooktown Botanic Gardens where we had a lovely wonder around.

After the Botanic Gardens we had a look at Cherry Tree Bay.

How beautiful does this look? Pity you can't swim. To much of a risk.

Monday 26 July

A quiet day today getting business work done. We had quite a few swims as the temperature is getting warmer the higher up we go. It's been 30 and above the last couple of days. But as I mentioned it's still quite windy in Cooktown. Not all the time but at different times of the day and come night time we had to pull in the awning to make sure it didn't rattle around too much.

Greg joined the kids in the afternoon after doing lots of business work while I relaxed and took photos. :)

-- Mim and Greg