Cooktown Adventure before dementia

Cooktown 3rd May
We swung into the Cooktown Racecourse campsite.This is a council run site that again demands fully enclosed shower, kitchen , black and grey water systems. Once I used some sealant to block up the grey water system drain valve that had been knocked off on the trail we were 100% compliant . We had been told the “ranger” made twice daily inspections !

The best thing about the site wasn’t the great mix of shade and wide lush grass sites for the van but the racecourse owners dog who we duly adopted for our stay .
When we drove into the site it would bound up and want to play. When we eat it would obediently sit and wait to be spoiled with table tidbits. She even gave us a guided tour round the race track in the middle of the night . Kate won the first midnight Cooktown filly stakes.

At the local fishing shop i enquired about renting a tinny for a bit of estuary fishing. As well as a contact i got some ideas of where to fish on the Endeavour river too.

At 8 sharp we met our man Mollo down at the boat ramp. We had rented a tinny that had given many years of life and enjoyment to its many owners. The outboard was a 15hp Honda with some spare wires on show. As i had spent the previous day telling Kate just how safe this mode of transport and fishing was even in croc infested waters and convincing her to come on the trip i elected not to highlight these vehicle features.
I couldn’t avoid however a discussion about Mollos lack of a leg and its shiny metal replacement. Must have been a car accident Kate ?
For the Happy Gilmore fans out there I was expecting Mollo to show me a crocs eye in a jar and play “its only just begun” on the piano ala Chubbs .
Now for context i have never skippered a tinny before . And despite Mollos good instruction we spent the first 5 minutes going round and round in circles no more than 3 metres from the jetty finally getting snared in a nearby boats mooring. There was no-one around so the embarrasment was not publicised beyond Kate who is the height of discretion and I know would never bring it up again in public . A very kind fella with a filleting knife in his hand popped out of a pink fishing charter boat and helped us recover.After that the journey was plain sailing ! The whole day was spent touring the nooks and crannies of the river and its tributaries with a picnic lunch afloat. No big fish seen or taken but we did get a few little fingermarks and Trevallys. . a rocky start we had great day !

We were back at 4pm on the jetty and Mollo was waiting for us to put the boat on the trailer.Now its fair to say Mollo is a bit of a character and he looks tougher than a two dollar steak. As we got out of the boat onto the floating jetty Kate stated that she felt a bit wobbly and hadn’t found her sea legs . Vaguely reminiscent of a Lieutenant Dan scene in Forest Gump Mollo declared he could only find one !
I relayed to him that the engine constantly cut out and had a serious misfire every now and again. He then told us that he only had this motor because his mate who lives on a boat in the river had suffered heart attacks and struggled with the size of the motor so he swapped his little 6hp motor with him. And now its been a bit of a “stuffed pony “- now i don’t know what that means and neither does Google but I’m guessing its not that good.
He then went on to tell us that his mate now has a pig valve and a sheep valve in his heart and that modern heart care was amazing. Mollo had put him up in his house for a month or two as he recovered . “ I let him stay on the condition he didn’t eat all the fucking grass out the back !”

From the boat ramp we headed straight for the Cooktown hotel or the “Top Pub “ as it likes to be known. Couple of VBs and G&Ts hit the spot as did solace taken from other fishos we had seen out on boats that they were empty handed too.

The barmaid told us (barmaid facts are twice as reliable as barman facts ) that there is a 3.5m (just under 12 feet) croc that has been seen cruising around the main fishing wharf and that the locals are getting fed up telling tourists not to dangle their legs in the water when fishing ! Kate saw a croc give her a wink before it sunk under the surface as we were getting a bit close to a submerged sandbank and this could have been the one !

As Kate and I sat watching the start of the sunset over the racecourse an old lady from an RV that had rolled in during the day appeared at our table. She was obviously not too happy or had put her face on upside down that morning. She complained that their meal was being spoiled by a “hungry tramp”.

Whilst I looked over expecting to see a skinny Hobo with a bindle over his shoulder I saw nothing. It soon became clear that she had come to complain about our dogs behaviour. We of course let her completely finish her full complaint before explaining to her that the canine tramp didn’t belong to us . She reversed away from our van quicker than an Italian tank.

To her credit she came back after her fish and veggies to apologise and share secret free campsite locations in the outback as some sort of penance !

Cooktown or Cooks town as it was called for a year after it was founded in 1873 was named after Jimmy Cook who beached his ship the Endeavour here for repairs after ripping bits of it off on the reef near Cape Tribulation. Not only in the river Endeavour named after his boat but the town , Mount Cook and the local food preparers are all named after him too !

Cooktown was formed on the back of gold being found in the Palmer River which lies to the south west. At the height of the gold rush Cooktown had 8,000 residents some 4 times the current population. By 1880 it had 47 pubs , a brewery , bakery , hotels and a thriving brothel industry. As the gold finds dried up the population began to shrink.
During the second world war all civilians including indigenous tribes were evacuated from the town and the area due to the threat from a Japanese invasion/bombing. Some 20,000 troops were stationed in the area.
We agreed our next day would be a gentle one and settled on a mini road trip to Cape Flattery which is a remote headland 70k to the north.
From the gravel road a track takes you through a mixture of low dunes and sand swamps. The water crossings in the swamp were exciting to say the least. The first took us a bit by surprise as the water parted on the windscreen !

All in all there were 3 deep crossings and around 12 in total. We then had to make our way over the silica sand dunes and down onto the beach . A 20k run along the beach had us at the headland. This stretch of coastline takes the full force of the prevailing weather and also captures the modern detritus that beachcombers could spend a lifetime going through . From industrial tanks to vintage drug bottles .

After a picnic lunch on the sand we searched for the route inland to cut across the headland to Connie beach. Now on this remote headland sits the biggest silica sand mine in the world . 63 km2 in size and produces two million tonnes of sand a year. Anyone with a flat screen tv or iPhone/android is likely to have a little bit of Cape Flattery in their possession. They reckon there is enough sand in Cape Flattery to supply world demand for 100 years.
There are roads to the mine and a huge 500m wharf too but of course all public access is prohibited. We chatted with a mine worker who kindly gave us directions to it and he was explaining that he loved mining sand compared to coal and other minerals because its so easy and clean .To get from one beach to another we had to utilise a culvert 2.4m by 2.4m . This meant some of the gear from the top of the car had to be taken down for the subterranean journey.

Due to the absence of any public roads etc the only way back was the way we came. Getting over the first big dune off the back proved to be a little troublesome. It took three attempts and we had to drop tyre pressures right down to 15 psi to get up and over.
Tyre pressures have to be altered for different driving conditions , sand,mud , gravel, rocks to provide the right combination level of grip ,protection and speed. Once we got over the dunes and through the swamp we got the compressor out and got back to normal .

I think we got home more tired and exhilarated from our lazy day than expected !
On the trip there was an abundance of wildlife from the 3m snake i nearly ran over to black neck storks , white bellied sea eagles , blue winged Kookaburras, woodland kingfishers ,beach stone curlews to name a few .We had a great trip out to Elim beach north of Cooktown. We met the head elder of the local tribe and 10 dollars got us access to the reserve.
We drove on the beach to coloured sand cliffs and drove up to cape Bedford where we got stuck on the sand dunes just before the beach . Dug the car out and we retried with success.
We met up with Brett who is the caretaker for the racecourse and the owner of the adopted dog who we found out to be named Gypsy which proved the unhappy old hag mentioned previously wasn’t far off the mark .Brett is great man who helped when our generators was belching blue smoke like a 1920s steamer . I was telling him about our journey across the outback . He asked me if we “bitumen” , i replied that most of it was dirt tracking . He repeated louder – no “bitumen”. . It turned out that he was saying  fisherman but he was sans dentures and that combined with my partial deafness was the reason for the miscom ! Now Brett has spent two years living rough down by the river and had now secured the caretakers role. He is a top bloke , knows everything about Cooktown its characters and stories. Very generous man too.
We decided on a day trip out to Laura and to take in some of the countryside around there too. This day trip turned into a bit of a marathon.
The Old Coach Road runs from Laura to Maytown and it doesn’t look too bad on the map and it gave us a circular route so why wouldn’t we drive it ?
After a place called Jowalbinna it started getting hilly , then craggy, then rocky then the rock steps and gully have two wheels off the ground whilst the others scrabble for grip.

We only got stuck once (but it was for 30 minutes ) but some boulders here and there and a bit of chutzpa on the throttle and the MUXY did us proud. The track is relentless and was challenging from start to finish . Now we started from Laura at 11 ish. We got to Maytown at 530pm with 140k to go . At one point it looked like the swags that ride on the top of the car may get used that night as it gets dark at 6 and we weren’t keen on doing this kind of off-roading in the dark . Fortunately the track out of Maytown to the east was graded and posed no night driving problems apart from a couple of shallow river crossings.

I read this when i did my post activity preparation !
“ The Old Coach Road is the hardest track in Cape York “
“This track is as hard as any four wheel drive track in Australia “

Fail to prepare prepare to fail !!!!
The Old Coach Road was the link between the railhead at Laura that ran from the port at Cooktown and the Palmer River gold field .

On some sections you could see where the rock had been chiselled to make the route. Maytown was a busy thriving hub of the goldfields between 1874 and 1920 but today it is a ghost town but a very interesting one. The foundations of many buildings still exist and the granite kerb and gutter stones for the length of the old high street are still in place. It was a substantial place with around 20,000 people working in the gold fields and 600-900 people in the town.

There was a very big Chinese presence and influence in the gold field and in the town with the majority of people being Chinese. The town had hotels , chemist,stores, post office , police station , butcher , baker( remains of the stone oven still remain). We would have loved to stay longer but it was dark ! We off course managed to have a beer at the only building in the town .Made by a preservation society and it was filled with artefacts from the town !

We got back to our campsite at 10pm and ready for a kip !

weather in Cooktown is known for its windiness and it has been blustery for most of our stay. On a blue sky and windless day however we ventured out to the mouth of the Annan river. This is accessed by a little track thats sits just off the beach that runs along Walker bay for a mile or so. It is a stunning situation being able to drive out onto a sand spit with the river on one side and the sea behind. One of the locals had been telling me about the virtues and technique of using popper lures. These skiff along the top of the water creating splashes and waves that stimulates the attack mode in predatory fish. As we arrived there was a small shoal of decent sized herring 15-20cm sitting near the bank on the still lagoon side. It looked as though they were penned in . So i threw my newly acquired popper in the water and on the first cast the surface erupted and a barramundi breached the water completely with my lure.
Unfortunately it didn’t stick and after its dramatic somersault in the air it was gone. A few casts in the same pool didn’t see a re run. But i did manage to catch a few herring in the cast net for live bait. We had a big fish that looked like a Spanish Mackerel follow one of the lures in but again no winners podium. The tide was against us and we gave up due to lack of water on the river side of the spit. So close to that first barra !

On the morning of departure i woke to find only one thong at the step of the caravan . I looked everywhere for it with no luck . . I walked up to Bretts house who lives on the racecourse and diplomatically asked if he had seen my thong as he had been cutting there grass . Gypsy the pig dog had been down to visit us in the night and taken it as a memento .All was in good order so no harm done .