Wednesday 12th - Cooktown Touring

Today we headed south to Archer Point where we heard there was some good free camping. It turned out to be a very nice spot with a number of people camping there.

From there we headed back into town to Grassy Hill Lookout.

Cooktown was the meeting place of two vastly different cultures when, in June 1770, the local Aboriginal Guugu Yimithirr tribe cautiously watched the crippled sailing ship – His Majesty's Bark Endeavour – limp up the coast seeking a safe harbour after sustaining serious damage to its wooden hull on the Endeavour Reef, south of Cooktown. The Guugu Yimithirr people saw the Endeavour beach in the calm waters near the mouth of their river, which they called "Wahalumbaal".

The captain of the Endeavour, Lieutenant James Cook, wrote: ". . . it was happy for us that a place of refuge was at hand; for we soon found that the ship would not work, and it is remarkable that in the whole course of our voyage we had seen no place that our present circumstances could have afforded us".

The British crew spent seven weeks on the site of present-day Cooktown, repairing their ship, replenishing food.