You know how sometimes

life has a funny way of surprising you when you least expect it, or when you’ve given up on an idea? That’s exactly what happened to me on this part of my trip. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would only get as far north as Cooktown, even though it was part of my dream to get all the way to the top of northern Australia.

The Aussies refer to that part of Australia as “The Tip”, and it’s easy to see why when you look at it on a map. It was only while I was in Cooktown that I arranged that trip with Anthony. But that journey is for another post. I’ve also written about the fun things we got to do while camped at Cape York, you can check it out here.

In 2016, before I found my rideshare to far northern Australia with Anthony, I tried to get up there every way that I knew how to; yet despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get a ride. So few people go up that far north, and most of them are already in a group that fills their vehicle, meaning they had no room for a backpacker like me to join them. So I settled for the best that I could do on my own.
When you rent a car, they clearly tell you that it is only meant to be driven on the pavement (the Aussies’ slang for it is “bitumen”, which is actually one of the ingredients of asphalt), there’s to be absolutely no off-roading! There are some places that will rent you an off-road vehicle, but their prices are much higher. So, I looked at a map to see how far north the bitumen would take me; and that led me to Cooktown.

I didn’t want to take this fun trip up north solo, I wanted to share this experience with somebody. So I put up an ad on an Australia Backpacking group that I was part of, and Marina responded. After meeting, and hitting it off, together we planned a 4-day/3-night trip for early May. We were fortunate to be given our accommodation while we were there. Earlier, I had helped a bloke & his family move, and his parents lived in Cooktown; they generously hosted us in their guest suite. That was just one of the bonuses of this trip – staying in their house gave me a welcome break from hostel living!
Living in a hostel has its perks, like meeting many travellers, some of whom will have similar plans as you. (I planned a few different day trips with new friends for “the next day” quite easily.) As an extroverted people-person, for the most part, I loved living in hostels! There’s also something so temporary about living in them too, most people come and go so quickly. I lived and worked in a few hostels, so I sometimes stayed put for a couple of months (or more) at a time, while I saved up for the next leg of my journey. A couple of the things I missed most? A soft bed and a bath!!

I planned to do as much as I could in those 4 days! Marina was easy going, and for the most part, wanted to do and see the same things as I did. Regarding the matters where we differed, we each did a couple of things solo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s 330kms from Cairns to Cooktown, so it was an easy drive. We took turns driving, and on the way, we stopped at a couple of lookout points and enjoyed the views.

 

 

 

Once we got to Cooktown, we sought a place to watch the sunset. The best place is called Grassy Hill. Oh, man! What sunsets they have there!! The Endeavour River empties into the Coral Sea. From up here, the lazily snaking Endeavour River and its mouth are visible.
Did you know? In 1770, the HMS Endeavour, James Cook’s ship, was damaged on the reef, which forced him to beach it for repairs in the river’s wide mouth. James Cook himself climbed up Grassy Hill, where he got a good look at the river, the sea, and the reefs that he had hit and would need to avoid with his ship in the future. Thereafter, James Cook named the river after his ship, the Endeavour River.

 

 

There’s also an old Lighthouse on top of Grassy Hill. It was constructed and first lit in 1886. The last lightkeeper to live there died on Christmas Eve in 1918. It was automated in 1927, and is still active today! This lighthouse is only about 20′ high, so it’s small in comparison to many others. But I love lighthouses, so I was thrilled to be able to see this one!
Then we went to meet our hosts, Mario & Mina. They had prepared us supper – fresh, home-cooked risotto! It was amazing!! That evening, we sat outside and watched the stars. We even saw a couple of shooting stars. I had a feeling that this trip was going to be amazing!

 

 

The following morning, we stopped at the info center and the Ranger station, to inquire about things we planned to do over the next couple of days. There’s a popular hike up Mount Cook that we planned to hike. But sadly, it had been temporarily closed by the Rangers, for trail maintenance. However, the Ranger station receptionist told us with a wink that there were no Rangers in town (so we wouldn’t get a ticket) and the work hadn’t started yet; so there wasn’t any good reason for us not to hike it anyway. We thanked her, then discussed it while walking back to the car. We decided to do the hike, and I’m sure glad we did!

 

 

It took us a little over 1.5 hours to hike up, then we spent an hour up top. We saw spiders, snakes, & skinks; nothing out of the ordinary for Australia. The two spiders that I have included pictures of here aren’t dangerous or aggressive towards people at all. The Golden Orb Weaver does have a mild toxin, but they rarely bite people.

 

 

It was a nice sunny day, and the views were awesome! I spent some time just enjoying the view and letting it all soak in. After, we went back to town and walked along the esplanade. (“Esplanade” is a street by the sea, every city/town by the ocean has one.) We checked out some historic markers and one of the statues of James Cook.

 

 

We were later told that there are no fewer than six James Cook monuments in Cooktown. After we ordered a supper of freshly-caught fish & chips from a restaurant called “Gill’d ‘n’ Gutt’d”, we watched the sunset from the Queen’s Steps. (The “Queen’s Steps” are concrete steps that were built by the side of the river in the park for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited Cooktown in 1970. All that remains now are the concrete steps.) Then we retired for the night early. The next morning, we had plans to go to a little bay, called Cherry Tree Bay, to watch the sunrise. The only catch was that we couldn’t drive to that bay, the only way there was via a hiking trail.

I woke up very early the next morning, and Marina decided to keep sleeping; so I drove to the trailhead alone. Then I hiked in the dark, by torch light (Aussies call flashlights “torches”).

I saw so many spiders! In fact, I didn’t only see spiders, but I kept running into their webs in the dark. Not only was it really annoying, but I also grew a little concerned because I didn’t know if I would get a poisonous spider on my face or neck!
So I came up with a solution, I found a short stick with a bend in it, which I carried out at arm’s length in front of me. It caught all the spider’s webs, leaving me a safer, web-free trail to hike on!

 

 

I randomly saw a Ring-Tailed Gecko (they live in a small area and are quite rare to see, people come to Cooktown from all over just to look for them), and a bat was flying around me because of all the moths around my torch! So it was an adventure hiking in the dark to get there. The hike took me about half an hour.

 

 

 

 

 

When I arrived on the beach, it was still almost completely dark, there was just a line of color showing on the horizon. I quickly set up my GoPro, to do a timelapse. Then I sat on a log near a lone palm tree and watched the sun paint the sky as it rose. Also, I was thrilled to have caught some crabs in my timelapse as they scuttled around the beach. Cherry Tree bay is a little secluded, has a beautiful little beach, and I was all alone there. In fact, I didn’t see anyone else until I was hiking out. I thought that the experience of hiking in the dark and seeing the sunrise was very worth it!

 

 

Once the sun had fully risen, I took more pictures, then hiked back out to my car. Once back to the trailhead, I drove back “home” and joined Marina for breakfast. Later in the morning, we stopped at the post office to get some postcards.

While we were in the post office, an old local guy told us about a pedestrian suspension bridge that we should go see. It was out near Marton, on the way to the airport. We went to check out the airport, then stopped and walked across the suspension bridge and back. It was pretty cool!

 

 

 

 

Next, we stopped at the Bloomfield Falls. We were standing below and downstream of the falls, so due to this perspective, it looked like the waterfall was flowing out of the jungle, which looked neat! This was a treat that not many tourists would see.

 

We then tried to drive along the Mt. Amos road to Trevethan Falls. We made it past the turnoff for the falls, but the road got so wet that I reckoned a 4×4 was required (I couldn’t foresee our rental car making it); so we turned around and tried to get to Archer Point, where there was another lighthouse. But alas, the road was way too rough for our rental car, so we turned around and came back to Cooktown. Once back, while Marina chilled at “our place”, I checked out the Cooktown Botanical Garden (in Australia, all the botanical gardens are free to get into, which is marvellous). Lastly, I saw another beautiful sunset from Grassy Hill (I had to see as many as I could, as I was only there for a limited time).

 

 

The next morning, we mailed our postcards, then left Cooktown. On our way back to Cairns, we stopped at The Lions Den Hotel. We were given some Custard Apple & Sour Fruit to try. The sour fruit had the consistency kind of like a stringy banana, but was sour like rhubarb. After we checked out the little museum there, we found the swimming hole. We swam for a bit (about 20 minutes), then we laid in the sun to dry. On the way back to Cairns, we made a couple of other stops, at a waterfall and a roadhouse.
And that concluded our Cooktown trip. It was a really nice trip, wherein we did most everything that we wanted to do. I was also very thankful that we had good weather (nice and sunny, no rain) for our entire trip!

In another post, I’ll go into more detail about my trip with Anthony & Emily, but here’s a bit of a spoiler for you. When I joined Anthony & Emily for our trip to far north Australia, we came through Cooktown. But we didn’t stop for nearly all the tourist things that Marina & I did, neither did we do too much in town. For us on that trip, it was pretty much just a fuel stop. I was really glad and thankful that I had already done most everything I had wanted to do around Cooktown over my 4-day trip with Marina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Till next time, keep dreaming big!
» Jamie

 

“Never let your memories be greater than your dreams” – Douglas Ivester”