Downtown Cooktown

Thursday 1 October… Well, Captain Cook ( though he was only a Lieutenant then) certainly made a big impression on this town! We walked the trail, we looked at the monuments, and whilst not exactly authorities on the subject, we think we know a lot more about Jimmy Cook and his ship The Endeavour than we did this morning. We reckon if he had had a Tom Tom he wouldn’t have sailed into the reef and most likely would have sailed past here, so there wouldn’t have been a Cooktown would there?!! Anyway we did all the touristy things and even had a coffee in the Captain Cook café. Cooktown is a very nice place, very laid back with tourism it’s main money-spinner, though we did think some of the information boards need a refurb.
We had lunch at Finch Bay, just the other side of the headland another beautiful beach, but unfortunately we are back in crocodile territory and you swim at your peril. We were joined for lunch by a very young puppy which was lost, the owner had been looking for it earlier before we found it. We took it to the council office where they have a dog warden who put it in his pound. They should be able to track the owner down as Cooktown isn’t that big. Later we spent an hour in the Cook Museum which had a strong Chinese influence and a fascinating account from the Aboriginal perspective of Cooks landing and stay whilst he was fixing his ship and waiting for the wind to change. The tales must have been passed down the generations for 200 years. The museum building was originally a convent, the Sisters of Mercy coming from Ireland complete with their woollen habits. They must have had quite a shock when they got off the boat. “Bit warm for Holyhead”
There is a vast improvement in the visibility today, the wind yesterday and today seems to be doing a good job clearing the general murk, though it does kick up a fair amount of local dust, but that settles quite quickly.
We like Cooktown very much and as there is more to see we will stay for a while. One downside is the old internet chestnut, they say they have WiFi but it only works 200m away from our site, so we have to lug everything over to the camp kitchen, stand on one leg and point the shiny thing at the moon and wait for half an hour for a connection! But there again we are pretty remote up here.