The drive inland up to Cooktown although only 280 k/m's seemed to take forever through quite dry country on a very winding road over mountain ranges and then back into rain forest on the coast. The town itself is quite small and sits at the mouth of the Endeavour River which looks amazing with all the palms and green lush forest. Captain Cook berthed here after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef in June of 1770 to mend his boat before leaving in August. The town was full of history and the museum has canons and the anchor from the boat and also a hill called Mount Cook. The weather being very hot and humid was a bit of a challenge for us as we were free camping at the racecourse with no power for air con. Where we stayed had a basic fee of $10 per night and you could camp where you liked as long as you were fully self contained. They are very strict and a ranger came around a few times a day and we saw many people being asked to leave as they did not have grey water holding tanks, very amusing ! I photographed a non camper in a car who arrived and loaded up the supplied rubbish bins with lots of house rubbish. He did not like that and we had "words" as he then photographed me but after thinking about it he returned and removed his rubbish and left in a hurry. I felt like the camp manager, what a meanie !
The ranger wanted his rego and was going to follow it up, they don't muck around in this town and I guess that's why it's so nice and clean. Good on them. People doing things like this get free camp spots closed down. We did learn something important while there. We had wondered why we were getting bitten so much but it turns out midges can get through the protective netting on our windows. They are just about invisible to the eye but can inflict a very nasty bite and especially love Steph. We visited the popular bowling club one night for a couple of drinks and had a fantastic meal and the place was buzzing because of the great selection of affordable meals and terrific atmosphere. We loved this place but after 3 very hot and sweaty nights it was time to move south again to get away from this humidity which is just a bit hard for us to handle. While the town has everything you still felt that you were in a very remote place and Steph was starting to look forward to being back in the civilisation of lovely Port Douglas again. A visit to the local water front markets was a nice way to say goodbye to this very remote and historical town.