Cooktown, Australia Tues. March 31, 2009

The rock where Kathleen,Nicky and Alejandro are standing is the exact point where Captain James Cook landed his vessel, The Endeavour. The street photos are to give you a sense of the traffic...any? The post office was Grand Central Station, Cooktown style. The pub signs, great. The low beach area shot was where over the past 3 weeks they have had sea crocs come lurching out of the sea to attack people or small animals, so they had to put up signs. The trash can only had beer cans in it... The picture of Nicky's hand in the grass. There are some small ferns..tiny, tiny..tiny that grow in their grass that when you touch them they close the way a man eating plant would but in a tiny way and nobody should clean their fish near where the crocs have been spotted. Good lesson there! Enjoy the photos and more info below.



































Cooktown.

This is the place where the famous Captain James Cook was able to "beach" his ship The Endeavour, to get the ship repaired and to replenish his supplies for his crew. Having spent just a few hours wandering the streets of this town, I don't know how Capt. Cook found all that he needed. Cooktown was the meeting point for two VERY different cultures. The English and the Aboriginal natives that were there. The Endeavour hit some of the corral reefs just south of Cooktown and had to limp into this safe harbor. It was really a miracle that they found this exact spot which suited them well to be able to hoist the ship for repair and the locals seemed more than happy to help them replenish their goods and help get them back on their way. It took seven weeks for all the repairs to be made to the ship and the provisions to be found and put onto the ship. It is reported that the first English sighting of a kangaroo was here in Cooktown. The natives called them gangurru, which was transcribed as Kangaru and now is kangaroo. They saw it up on a grassy hill and returned to England to tell tales of the unusual animals this place hosts. They must not have seen the crocs or the snakes or the spiders on this visit!! The town is appropriately named for Captain Cook and they have many monuments erected to him. Our day was spent on a Welden Family tour. Charles and Nicky both needed hair cuts. Our job was to find the local barber shop. We walked about half a mile into town from the ship and finally went into a "lawn bowling" alley. The gal inside said there was really not such a place but we could knock on anyone's door and ask if they would cut hair and they would do it in their yard!! Charles said NO. He will just continue to look a little scruffy until he finds a barber pole that is attached to a building and not a tree in someone's yard! I wanted him to do it as it would have made for get photos and stories but no... We did find the post office to be the "hub" of the town. People in and out paying bills, posting signs about upcoming things about town, mailing parcels, checking their PO boxes,...ALSO they sell t-shirts in the post office and have a pet Stone Fish, which by the way are DEADLY! The kids found a baby kangaroo to hold at a museum a few store fronts down and then found a musical ship to try their musical abilities. They made really nice musice with Christine and Alajandro.
We found the city to have witty humor with their signs and I went on a sign photo tour! The town is like Mayberry without Andy and Barney, without the diner and without Floyd and his barbershop for sure!!! A slow town that once was booming with gold miners! At one time there were over 20 hotels right on the water front. Now there are 2 or 3 and I don't know if they are really open or not. A big typhoon hit here and wiped out the hotels that didn't really need to be rebuilt because the gold ran out in the mines where it was found so the miners that were here to seek their fortune left town.
We found it to be a pleasant town, quiet for sure. If you are planning a trip here, the gal that pushes a cart around town and does haircuts on the street, or park or your yard is currently in New Zealand but a guy fishing on the pier said she would be back before Easter to give everyone haircuts! That's good.
Fun, slow, day filled with local people wondering why yard haircuts were unusal to us! I guess they might not understand why we pay more for bottled water than we do for gasoline either! Crazy Americans I guess!!
The Aussie's are very hospitable folk. If you come here, bring a deck of cards...not much to do but lovely.

Cairns, Australia...Gateway to The Great Barrier Reef 3-30-09

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. Australia has almost 1/5th of the world's reef area and most of it is at the Great Barrier Reef!
If you thought you could come to Australia and rent a condo near the Great Barrier Reef and take it all in, WRONG! The Great Barrier Reef is 1,240 miles long!! Is it great becasue of it's size or because it is the world's busiest and varied marine habitat in the world? Both, and maybe because it is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world!
Our day was spent on what you can now imagine was a tiny speck of the reef. We took a 90 minute caramaran ride out from Cairns to a reef station and "parked". Much like they do at NASA when they "park" spaceshuttles in space stations! We "parked" at a large anchored platform that had a covered floating dock with many tables and changing rooms. It also had a glass bottom boat and a glass submarine. The day was spent snorkeling and spectating the marvels that exist there. We did not see any sharks, sea snakes, sea crocs, or the like! Thank goodness. We were able to enjoy all that was there, no bites, stings or even sunburn (we kept re-applying)!!!
Spending the entire day in the water lead to very tired travelers. A wonderful day. A wonderful lesson in marine biology. Everything on the reef was alive! All the coral, the grass, the sponges, the clams(those were something else), the FISH....all really amazing. They protect the reef as if it is a newborn baby. Everyone is warned about keeping the reef alive, no touching it, no stepping on it...one guy must have lost his mind at one point and stood on a part of the reef and the naturalists with us blew high pitch whistles that sounded exactly like the ones that are in The Sound of Music when the family is found hiding in the cemetary...remember that noise?? It was awful! My first thought was SHARK but no, it was a reef violation!!!!
We all made it back in one piece and loved every minute of it all. A suggestion to anyone headed this way. Take a sea sick pill before you get on the catamaran ride. It was one of the roughest rides we have ever taken. MANY people got sick. We did not thank goodness.