All those historic sites in Cooktown

Cooktown is as far north as we made it on Cape York.  This is about as far as the bitumen goes.  I was expecting to see a town that catered to 4WD adventures and such, but instead it felt very much like many other small Aussie towns.  Lots of historic sites in Cooktown.  This is a fountain in memoriam of Mary Watson, the very definition of irony since she died from lack of water after an Aboriginal attack. This one is in memoriam of Captain Cook. This one is to a British explorer, Edmund Besley Court Kennedy.  According to the plaque he was speared, only a few of his party survived. This was a day where we attempted to go to a waterhole for a swim but couldn’t find what we were looking for.  So to help the kids forget we gave them ice cream.  🙂 This is a cannon that had been given to Cooktown for protection during World War I. One of our favourite things in Cooktown was the musical ship.  So, so fun to try all the different ways to make music.  We’re fascinated by all the large termite mounds.  🙂 Here it is.  Or here he is.  James is a family name, common on both sides of our family. Look at TurboBug.  ‘Who is this guy anyway?’ Along the path were all sorts of tiles telling the history of the town. Look, the lighthouse on Grassy Hill! We came across the Milbi Wall which tells the story of European settlement from the Aboriginal point of view.  It begins with lovely stories and legends. I had each of the kids find a section they wanted me to read.  This one was about why the emu can’t fly. Then the stories turned into more concrete history and information. We found this rather large rock marking the exact spot where Captain Cook came ashore. A few steps lead down to it, but it pretty much blocks the path to the beach.  It seemed a bit odd, I suppose they are trying to protect the spot a bit. On the town map I saw something that said ‘The Queen’s Steps’.  Since Queen Elisabeth had visited Cooktown during her 1970 trip to Australia they had erected some steps for her to use when she disembarked.  I imagined these elaborate steps  and I really wanted to see them, but couldn’t find them during our walk.  I started asking random people and no one knew what I was talking about.  Finally a local woman realised what steps I must be referring to, she didn’t know they were even called the Queen’s steps and had even sat on them the day before while she sipped her coffee.  After much wandering around, I found this.  Um, yeah.  I pretended like I was taking a picture of the sign so no one would think Mr Fishing Man was my focal point.  🙂 The harbour is nice, but this far north there are too many crocs to worry about so no swimming beaches. One last thing about Cooktown…when we were driving into town we were lucky to see a dingo cross the road in front of us.  A wild dingo, how cool is that???