The Cookie Monster

We had 4 nights in Cooktown, 3 days, after arriving late from Cape Trib because we took the long way.  It rained all night the night before and we decided the Bloomfield Track would be too risky.  We stopped at Palmer Roadhouse for lunch and had some hot chips and coffee with our sangers which was nice and then stopped for a look at Black Mountain before arriving at Cooktown at about 3pm.

We didn't get into studying the history of Cooktown in the museum, instead we braved the cookie monster and got out into the extreme weather conditions which fluctuated between gale force winds, hot sun and quick thunderstorms.  This prevented us from doing a fishing charter out on the reef which we had planned, all the fishing had to be done on the Endeavour River.  The first day we did a big walk that took half the day.  We walked through the botannic gardens and around the scenic rim except we went boulder hopping around the point from Finch bay to Cherry Tree bay and then up to the lighthouse and through town and along the river to the cemetery.  We stopped at the bakery for lunch because we were hunger flat then I was keen to walk up Mt Cook but the boys protested so we settled for an arvo swim in the pool.  Cooktown only has 3000 pop. and doesn't look much as a town but has stunning scenery. 

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We finished the day with a fish on the wharf and Arch finally caught his elusive fish- a nice sized bream.

We threw him back and bought some spanish mackerel fillets and cooked them up with some potatos and salad- beautiful.
The second day we kept with the fishing theme and hired a boat off Milo and went out on the river for 4 hours.  We fished off a couple of little wrecks near the mangroves and caught 17 bream and 1 finger mark.  Wooz-7fish, NaDan-5, Archer-5, Gaz-1, Kirst-0 (but at least she didn't play up this time).  Arch caught 2 big ones at the end of the sesh so we decided they were lunch along with a kilo of uncooked prawns off Nicko's seafood truck.  Peeled and cooked fresh on the barbee with garlic butter not bad with chips and salad again.  Then it rained in the arvo so we got more wet and jumped in the pool and then relaxed and watched ET.  Too many fish to photograph this time!

Big highlight of the trip on the 3rd day was the Rainbow Serpent tour with Willie Gordon, from Gurrbi Tours (which means time to reflect).  He talked about how the aboriginals were not tribal but family orientated.  There were no leaders (elders is a western term) and they functioned as a group that communed when making decisions.  They felt 1 person could never know enough to make decisions for everyone.  So education was important and the knowledge was passed on through paintings and dances which all had to have a story associated with them, otherwise they had no greater meaning.  Cuts in your skin were put there to show your level of wisdom and education was not just for practical reasons but spiritual ones too- reminding you to connect with the light in your heart.  The Rainbow Serpent is about connecting sun and water which both sustain us in the form of a river and rainbow above it.  As we drove in to bush a huge rainbow was in the sky ahead of us which seemed pretty special.  Willie took us to the area where the babies were born and then their placenta buried and that was the place they were buried when they die.  There were lots of little caves with paintings amongst beautiful rock formations and the reason why they came there was they could see the shape of a snake in the rocks which represented the rainbow serpent.  Willy also got the boys to do a little rock painting, he showed the boys how to track, how to catch lizards, and talked a lot about the vegetation.

He said it was his job to look after the boys paintings along with many other kids that had done his tour.  Archer and Wooz painted Nav and NaDan (Willie called him Mambo) painted a pig.  He also showed Mambo some magic and had lots of fun with the boys.  Thanks Willie we learned a lot.
To finish our stay we had to go to Archer Point, which apparently was a great place to fish and a special place (ofcourse).  So we drove down there and it was blowing a Benny Gale, which didn't bring out its beautiful side, but we saw a black dingo, nearly ran over a brown snake, saw a dying turtle, did some dangerous 4wdriving, Mambo (he has had the most nicknames this trip) caught a codfish, Wooz netted a puffer and we got lots of snags and lost most of our tackle. 
That was it for the monster off to the Atherton Tablelands tomorrow.