Cooktown

On arriving in Cooktown we headed straight for the information centre – we are regulars at all the information centres now – the kids know the little “i” symbol and point it out to us. Once in the centre, we are like a pack of vultures – we swoop in and take everything we can. I collect brochures for the kids scrapbooks, Chris gets brochures on the current town and the I think the kids just get one of each brochure there!

Anyway, we go into the Cooktown information centre to find out what there is around town to do and see. We come out of the centre with a map of Cooktown with points of interest and, of course, armfuls of brochures. Our first stop was Finch Bay – which was just amazing. We parked and walked a short distance through the bush and then it opens onto an amazing beach – but you still have to be keep an eye out for Mr Snappy!

The next couple of "points of interest" were in the main street of Cooktown - we drove down past the shops to the mariner. There was not much to the town - it was fairly small. We parked the car, got out and walked around the shops for a while and surprise, surprise Chris found a fishing shop. I think he has an inbuilt radar for them. While he went in their, mum and I took the kids to the park for a play. Chris had been in the shop for a while, when I said to mum "did you hear the owner organising a fishing charter? It wouldn't surprise me if Chris is in their organising one now!".

Well you wouldn't believe it - Chris came out of the fishing shop and said "I have just spoken to the owner about a fishing charter for tomorrow - is that ok?" I looked at mum and we both started laughing - "yes that's fine" I said.

The next item on the "point of interest" sheet was the Musical Ship - which was just next to the park so we trotted over to see what sort of a racket we could make. Well let me tell you, we made a racket and a half - the kids had a ball banging everything in sight. I am still not sure whether it is a musical ship or a noisy ship?

After we had finished annoying everyone in the park with our "music" we headed up to the lighthouse lookout. What we didn't expect on the way up to the lighthouse was a dirt road - "oh, no not again" I groaned! I am really getting over these dirt roads - and this one was up hill all the way. As we have found in the past it was worth the dirt road to see the view - you could see all of the town and the ocean as far as the horizon.

After that we headed back to the van to get ready for another night of gale force winds. As we were heading back to the van we noticed something that gave us a bit of a scare - and a bit of a wakeup call I guess. The paddocks beside the road leading into the camp site had been burnt out while we were gone - because town is 30kms away, we had no idea. It was a scary thought driving back to the van hoping everything was all good when we got there. Luckily the bush fire didn't reach as far as the campspot, but it certainly made us more aware that it is something to keep in mind.