Endeavour River and Grassy Hill

Fri 2 October… The good news is------the dust haze has completely gone, the bad news is, not heard a thing from Sheldon Bosley.
We just had to call into town for essential supplies before setting off to follow the Endeavour River to the Endeavour Falls. We were too early at the newsagents for the national news paper, the delivery plane doesn’t land until 11 o’clock. There is a $1 surcharge on each newspaper, it’s daylight robbery, the plane has to come anyway to deliver the mail.
The Endeavour Falls are 35K’s north of Cooktown some of the road to begin with is sealed but after that it’s gravel. There are a couple of narrow bridges to negotiate before we arrive at the falls, the inside of the van is now covered with a film of red dust, it reminds us of Northern Territory. We park up under the palm and mango trees, then it’s a short walk down to the river where there is a wonderful swimming hole, but of course, this is croc country and one was spotted near here 6 months ago. Peter sometimes wonders if the authorities are a bit paranoid about crocs but thankfully he’s not prepared to take the chance! The Fall is not very high and as usual there is very little water ( another reason for not believing the croc story) but it was a very pleasant walk along a picturesque river bank despite the mosquitoes.
Back in Cooktown there is a big hill which Captain Cook climbed so he could survey the river and the reefs out in the Coral Sea. It is also where Europeans first saw a Kangaroo. They saw it, they marvelled, they sketched it, they shot it , they ate it!! “Bloody good tucker”. It’s a marvellous lookout point with an old light house up on top and we could see the reefs out to sea that worried Cook so much. The hill itself is called Grassy Hill but it is far from it. It’s a mound of granite with a very steep and dangerous gravel track up it, so dangerous that we abandoned the van halfway and walked up. We wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Photos and video to follow.