Photo: Adventure North Australia Tours
For anyone making the trek to 'The Top of Australa' - Cape York - this is where it all begins. The most northerly major town in Australia, Cooktown is the stepping off point for 4-wheel drivers heading north through Cape York Peninsula. The coastal track in these parts, which is a quagmire in the wet season and full of bulldust and giant potholes in the dry, is one of the worst roads in Australia and explains why most of the vehicles here are 4-wheel drives.
Situated at the end of the bitumen road at the spot where british navigaor James Cook repaired the damaged Endeavour in 1770, Cooktown boasts a unique character, based on its years of geographic isolation and hard life. The town is surrounded by the unspoilt natural beauty of the area, and first time visitors really feel like they've stumbled back in time and come across a local secret.
Finch Bay
Cooktown has numerous beaches. Finch Bay and Cherry Tree Bay are fringed with two of Cooktown's most beautiful beaches. You can drive to Finch Bay or you van walk there from the Botanical Gardens. Cherry Tree Bay is also accessible from the Gardens or Grassy Hill Road. Walker Bay, favoured by river mouth anglers and kite surfers, is located at the mouth of the Annan River. Access is by 4WD vehicles only.
Quarantine Bay (5km from Cooktown) is a pebbly beach, with the rainforest covered slopes of Mt Cook as its backdrop. Archer Point (20 km from Cooktown) has a beach which, at low tide, allows visitors to walk out to the reff and snorkel off the point, but keep a look out for crocodiles and stingers.
Cooktown is the northern terminus of the Australian Bicentennial National Trail, which, at 5,330 km, is the longest trail of its type in the world. The southern end of the trail is at Healesville, Victoria, a town 52 km north-east of Melbourne.
James Cook coming ashore at Endeavour River. Engraving: Royal Museums Greenwich
Cooktown lays claim to being the site of Australia's first European settlement, even though it was only a temporary one. On 17th June 1770, after accidentally striking the Great Barrier Reef, Lieut. James Cook and Endeavour limped up the coast from Cape Tribulation, coming to rest at the Endeavour River after a week. Cook stayed until 4th August, the longest stay in a single Australian location by Cook, repairing the vessel. It was here that the kangaroo was discovered and first described by Europeans. The natives called it 'kanguru'.
Reconciliation Rocks
Six meetings between Endeavour’s crew and the Guugu Yimithirr took place with one visit ending in an altercation after Cook refused to share the turtles found on the Endeavour, with the local inhabitants. They were chased away after twice setting fire to Cook’s camp, burning all around the camp and killing a suckling pig. Cook wounded one man with musket shot and followed the group until he caught up with them on a rocky bar near what is now the end of Furneaux Street, and known as Reconciliation Rocks.
After making signs of peace, Cook, who was also accompanied by Joseph Banks and three or four other persons, returned some spears to the elders of the group who then sat down together. Cook wrote in his journal ... "we now return’d the darts we had taken from them which reconciled every thing". Sydney Parkinson wrote in his journal ... "Several of them came to us afterwards and made peace with us".
Cook's recollection of the indigenous people he met in the Cooktown area as recorded in his journal was very positive. "(In) reality they are far happier than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they live in a tranquillity which is not disturbed by the inequality of condition. They have a good air to breathe and live in a temperate climate.
Cook's Landing - Fast Facts
The next Europeans to visit the area were the coastal explorers Phillip Parker King and Allan Cunningham who explored the area in 1819 and climbed and named Mount Cook but it wasn't until gold was discovered on the Palmer River that the government saw it necessary to establish a settlement here. Freidrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt arrived at Endeavour River with supplies and 96 people and overnight the settlement of Cook's Town, as it was originally known, came into being. By 1875, the wealth of the gold extracted from the region and the huge number of miners it attracted is reflected in the fact that the town had an incredible 65 hotels, a school, a fire brigade and two churches. The main street was nearly 3 km long.
Endeavour River, Cooktown
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