Day 10: Cooktown

We had planned a rest day in Cooktown and started with a bit of a sleep in, leisurely bacon and eggs for breakfast and it was nice not to have to pack up and move on. Rick headed out early, and Helen and Jim headed for the Jackey Jackey coffee shop run by a small Chinese man. The coffee was excellent and I can't tell you how much I have missed good coffee since we left home. 

We visited the Cooktown Historical Society and wandered through their museum, which was very interesting, then walked along the esplanade to the Captain Cook monument. Cooktown is named because Captain James Cook was wandering up the coast and he got bogged on the nearby reef and had to come in to shore to fix his boat. He was here for 42 days and named heaps of stuff, then he floated off back home to England. Nothing much happened her for another hundred years, then somebody discovered gold nearby and the town boomed to around 40,000 people.  Today, there is around 2000 people live in Cooktown. We happily spent the day wandering the streets and exploring museums and shops before making our way back up the hill to the lighthouse to watch the sunset.

Helen cooked a chicken stir fry with rice and it was delicious, and apparently there is some kind of state of origin football on tonight and people in the park are very excited about it. Well, not everyone!