|
| The Captain Cook statue
in the park beside the river at Cooktown
|
Cooktown (including Lizard Island)
The first true European settlement on Australian soil.
Today it is an exotic and distant township with a lazy
tropical feel.
Located 326 km (by the inland road) and 235 km (by the coast
road) from Cairns, Cooktown is notable for the number of 4WD
vehicles which exist in the town. They are monuments to the
awfulness of both roads which bring travellers to the town.
The inland route is corrugated and bumpy. The coastal track,
particularly the section from the Bloomfield River crossing
to Cape Tribulation, may well have the honour of being the
worst road in Australia: unbelievable gradients, narrowness,
bulldust, cavernous holes in the dry season and quagmires of
mud in the wet. It is a road which leaves the inhabitants of
Cooktown little option but to buy a good 4WD vehicle - or a
boat.
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| The road from Cooktown to
Cape Tribulation |
Cooktown wears its name with pride. It was the site of
the first white 'settlement' in Australia when Captain James
Cook, having accidentally struck the Great Barrier Reef off
the coast north of Cape Tribulation, struggled up the coast
and beached the H.M. Barque Endeavour on the shores of the
Endeavour River. Cook and his crew were to stay on the
river's edge from 17 June to 4 August, 1770: the greatest
amount of time they were to spend at any one location in
Australia.
There are no fewer than six monuments to Captain Cook in
the town. However, his journals of the voyage do not return
the compliment:
'18 June 1770. I climbed one of the highest hills among
those that overlooked the harbour, which afforded by no
means a comfortable prospect; the lowland near the river is
wholly overrun with mangroves, among which the saltwater
flows every tide; and the high land appeared everywhere
stony and barren. In the mean time, Mr Banks had also taken
a walk up the country and met with the frames of several old
Indian houses, and places where they had dressed shellfish.
'30 June 1770. And went myself upon a hill which lies
over the south point, to take a view of the sea. At this
time it was low water and I saw, with great concern,
innumerable sand banks and shoals lying all along the coast
in every direction. The innermost lay about three or four
miles from the shore, the outermost extended as far as I
could see with my glass, and many of them did but just rise
above water. There was some appearance of a passage to the
northward and I had no hope of getting clear but in that
direction; for as the wind blows constantly from S.E., it
would be difficult, if not impossible, to return back to the
southward.' Hardly a glowing recommendation.
After Cook came the coastal explorers Phillip Parker King
and Allan Cunningham who explored the area in 1819 and
climbed and named Mount Cook.
It wasn't until the discovery of gold on the Palmer River
that any serious settlement was contemplated. The
government, deciding the area needed a port, sent George
Dalrymple to find a suitable location for one. However,
events overtook both Dalrymple and the government when the
Leichhardt arrived at Endeavour River with supplies and 96
people. Overnight the settlement of Cook's Town (as it was
first called) grew up. This was a boom town. Within a few
months there were over 500 tents and, by 1875, there were an
incredible 65 hotels, a school, a fire brigade and two
churches. The main street meandered on for nearly 3 km.
Some indication of the optimism which existed in the town
at the time can be seen in the quality of the architecture
invested in the James Cook Historical Museum building (1886)
and the Westpac Bank building (1889).
The museum building was originally St Mary's Convent. A
magnificent two-storey structure it was constructed in the
belief that the town would become one of the great centres
of Australia. At the time it was the second-largest city in
Queensland. The elaborate cast-iron columns and balustrades
reflect a sense of certainty which seems strange when
observed from the Cooktown of a century later.
Similarly the Westpac Bank, with its superb cedar joinery
and heavy masonry columns, suggests that the Queensland
National Bank (which no longer exist) also believed in the
future prosperity of the port. In many ways their belief was
justified. At the time it was one of the busiest ports in
Queensland.
The decline of the goldfields meant the decline of
Cooktown. However, it had a sustained recovery when tin was
found in the area and it maintained its status for some
years when vessels would stop on their way from South-East
Asia to the ports further down the coast.
Fortunes turned again in 1907 when a cyclone nearly
destroyed the town. It had a brief recovery during World War
II but it wasn't until the current North Queensland tourist
boom that it began to achieve a level of success comparable
with the 1870s and 1880s.
Things to see:
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| Grassy Hill provides
excellent views of the Endeavour River and Cooktown
|
Cook Worship - Memorials and Lighthouse
Captain Cook is not only important in the town's history but
he is also somebody whom the civic fathers feel compelled to
honour at every opportunity. There are no fewer than six
Cook monuments in the town.There is a cairn at the place
where he beached the Endeavour, another smaller monument a
few metres away, a Bicentennial statue of the good Captain
in a nearby park, and a huge civic monument further down the
road.
Even the town's lighthouse is dedicated to Captain Cook.
A steep winding road leads to Grassy Hill which provides
excellent views of the coast, the Endeavour River and
Cooktown. At the top of the hill is another monument to Cook
as well as the lighthouse. A nearby placard reprints a
section from the Cooktown Courier of 5 August 1885
declaring: 'We understand that our lighthouse is on board
the New Guinea which left Batavia on 27 July for Queensland
ports. We have here another proof of the government's desire
to deal fairly with us. Before long the bright rays of our
lighthouse will be gleaming over the waste of waters,
carrying comfort and an assurance of safety to mariners who
have to thread the intricate navigation of our coast...no
better monument could be erected to the memory of Captain
Cook. It is the one he himself would have chosen, as it will
recall the gallant navigator and explorer everytime its
bright tower of white light is seen.'
As if all of these public declarations of admiration were
not sufficient there is also the excellent James Cook
Museum.
Other Memorials
Cook is not the only person to be memorialised. Next to the
large Cook statue in the park there is a tribute to Edmund
Kennedy, honouring his journey from Rockingham Bay to Escape
River. There's also a monument to Dan Seymour who
established the National Riding Track from Melbourne to
Cooktown in 1977. There's even a cannon which was brought to
the town in 1889 to prevent an unlikely attack from the
Russians. Further along the main street is a memorial to
Mary Beatrice Watson who, in 1882, with her baby and a
Chinese servant, died from lack of water after escaping from
Lizard Island where they had been attacked by Aborigines.
Mary Watson's monument, a perfect example of Victorian
Gothic design, was funded by public subscription and erected
in 1888.
The James Cook Museum
The museum building was originally St Mary's Convent. A
magnificent two-storey structure it was constructed in the
belief that the town would become one of the great centres
of Australia. The elaborate cast-iron columns and
balustrades reflect a sense of certainty which seems strange
when observed from the Cooktown of a century later.
The museum recommends that each visitor spend at least an
hour looking at the exhibits, which include a Chinese joss
house (originally brought out from Canton), a shell
collection, interesting material on Cooktown's early
history, and artefacts from the Endeavour, including one of
the cannons jettisoned from the vessel when it ran aground
on Endeavour Reef, and one of the ship's anchors which was
also recovered from the reef. The museum is open from
10.00am - 4.00pm each day, tel: (07) 4069 5386.
The Westpac Building
The Westpac Bank, with its superb cedar joinery and heavy
masonry columns, suggests that the Queensland National Bank
(which no longer exist) believed in the future prosperity of
the port. In many ways their belief was justified. At the
time it was one of the busiest ports in Queensland.
The Jacky Jacky Building
Located in Charlotte Street this is one of the town's oldest
buildings. The front windows contain an interesting
collection of photographs which offer an insight into the
town during its boom period.
Cooktown Cemetery
The cemetery at the western end of town may well be the best
presented graveyard in Australia. At the entrance is a large
map indicating the location of tombstones and other sites of
interest. These include the sepulchres of William Hovell,
the hapless Mrs. Watson, the mysterious Normanby woman (a
white woman who was found living with Aborigines in
unexplained circumstances), the victims of at least two
shipwrecks, and a special section for non-believers and
Aborigines.
There is also a Chinese Shrine. Over 20 000 Chinese
passed through the town on their way to the goldfields and,
at one time, Cooktown had a separate Chinatown with a
permanent population of nearly 3000 people. Interestingly
there is only one Chinese gravestone in the cemetery.
The Cooktown Sea Museum
Apart from the many interesting objects inside the building
there are, in the grounds, a number of anchors, a gold skip
from the Palmer River, a lakatoi from Papua New Guinea and a
bark canoe.
Black Mountains National Park
28 km to the south of the town these strange mountains
feature huge granite boulders blackened by surface lichen.
They are of special significance to the local Aborigines due
to their connection with the legend of Kalcajagga, which
recounts a feud between two brothers for the love of a girl.
Lizard Island
93 km north-east of Cooktown Lizard Island was first
explored by Captain Cook, who anchored in one of the
island's bays and climbed to the top of the hill now known
as Cook's Look. There he surveyed a suitable passage away
from the island.
It was not until a century later that Captain Robert
Watson with his wife, a servant and baby daughter, built a
cottage on the island. The ruins are still visible. Captain
Watson, was a beche-de-mer (sea cucumber) fisherman and
during one of his absences Aborigines from the mainland
attacked the cottage. Mrs. Watson, accompanied by her child
and a Chinese servant, attempted to flee to the mainland in
a barrel used for boiling beche-de-mer. The vessel floated
away from the coast and all three died of thirst.
In 1939 the island was declared a national park.
Currently there is a resort catering for 60 guests and a
research station. Regular flights to the island allow
visitors an opportunity to wander the shores or to go
bushwalking. Lizard Island is popular with deep-sea
fishermen who use it as a base.
Camping is allowed here as long as a permit has been
issued (ring the Cairns office of the National Parks and
Wildlife Service on (07) 4052 3096. The research station
conducts tours every Monday and Friday
Australian Businesses for sale
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Motels for sale
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Broadwalk Business Brokers
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