Cooktown and surrounds

From Cairns we headed via Port Douglas and up the steep range towards historic Cooktown.

The scenery changed dramatically once we reached Black Mountain range which is made up of a vast amount of black boulders, pushed up many years ago and eroded ever since. The landscape at that point changed from the wet tropics to the dry tropics.

 At Cooktown we stayed at the Big4 caravan park for the next 12 days.

The James Cook Museum has some great displays and artifacts about the stranding of Cooks ship and the history of the town.

The famous Cooktown Hotel mixes a mean scotch ‘n coke, according to Kerry.

And the view from the lookout over the Endeavour River at sunset is splendid.

Just south from Cooktown is Archer Point, a wild headland pounded by the annual trade winds, which makes it one of Australia’s windiest places.

Further heading south we entered back into the wet tropics and into the Daintree with a track winding through some of the most amazing rainforest. Some creek crossings had crystal clear water flowing and others were dry as a bone, waiting for the wet season.

We passed the Bloomfield River where we saw a large crocodile scoot into the water, disturbed by a boat and further along Frank caught a rare Jungle Perch at Bloomfield Falls.

Occasionally the rainforest would make way for a glimpse of the ocean where the reef comes up to the shore in places. What a great drive all the way to Cape Tribulation and back, made for a big day out.

We also had a look further north of Cooktown where we went to the Aboriginal town of Hopevale.
Just before Hopevale we did a tour with Willy, an Aboriginal story teller who took us to see the magnificent cave paintings, gave us a great insight into past and present Aboriginal life and showed us some bush tucker along the way. His dad was born in one of the caves he took us to see.