Cairns, Cooktown

Location: Sydney
Weather: Warm

Stayed a couple of nights in Cairns in the cheapest backpackers in town known as The Parkview (despite the $14pn price it wasn't a bad place and you got a free meal at the Woolshed pub, hmmm, maybe my standards are lower than they used to be, I dunno).

Then got a bus 5 hours north up the Inland Road to Cooktown. Cooktown was the first inhabited town in Australia. It's claimed as this because Captain Cook's ship the Endeavour got stuck on a reef back in 1770 and he had to stay in Cooktown for 3 months. The bus journey was pretty good, we stopped at a couple of places such as the strange volcanically formed Black Mountain and when we got to Cooktown the driver took us to the top of Grassy Hill - which Captain Cook actually climbed and mentions in his diary when he was surveying the area and looking for a way out of the reef.
Cooktown is a very quiet small town and there isn't much there except for the excellent James Cook Museum, the Bank museum, a heritage trail and several nice bays/beaches.
I stayed at Pam's Place which was fun, went to the local pub one night and climbed Mt Cook, the tallest mountain around. To be honest the way up Mt Cook is the worst mountain trail I've ever known, I'm guessing this was due to the low number of tourists that bother to do it. The trail, or at least what they call a trail, was only marked by ribbons on trees and what with all the overgrown plants and bushes you had to constantly keep checking for them, else you'd get totally lost and never find your way out, doomed forever on Mt Cook. The humidity and temperature in Cooktown also meant I probably sweated more climbing that mountain than I've ever done before in my whole life. Even better, when I did finally get to the top, which is very useful because there isn't a top view, just a hut which you can grafetti your name on, you have to go further down to a large boulder to see any view, a wild pig was there in the bushes and he looked and made such a noise and sound, that he pretty much frightened the life out of me. After backing off and desperately searching for a stick to defend myself, I ended up deciding that I'd give him a good booting if he happened to charge me again, but luckily he ran away squealing instead.
The trail down was much better and clearly marked and defined, I pity anybody who goes up the nice way and tries to go back down the way I walked up. I can only imagine hundreds of people have done this and got totally lost, never to be seen again.

By JamesReed on 03.11.04 @ 12:34 AM GMT