2011 Adventure: Australia

From Daintree, we went to the next town north, a mere 5 hours worth of driving along outback scrub. We got to a rise and looked back at the last 3 hours over nothing...

Still, it was quite beautiful

The mountains were lush compared to the lowland we'd been driving through

We would possibly pass 5 vehicles an hour

We arrived in Cooktown, which is where Captain Cook first set foot in Australia, in June 1770

Even though we were in Australia, Paul found it had not to adopt the Asian photo pose

We climbed Mt Cook and it was soooo windy, because of the SE Trade Winds - vague memories of something from school

We nearly walked into this web, with the spider as big as the span of my hand

And this spider was next to the other one, and was even bigger!

There were literally hundreds of these lizards darting out of our way, as we climbed to the top and back down

We got down from Mt Cook, crossed over an estuary at Finch's Bay, only accessible at low tide, keeping an eye out for crocs

We then climbed up the viewpoint overlooking the town, a very small town by our standards, but all laid out before us..

The view, where the old lighthouse was, was 360 degrees and here's overlooking the river that runs through Cooktown

And some mountains on the other side

A replica of the original lighthouse

This is a monument to Captain Cook

And when the new towners started to have problems with the local indiginous people, they wrote to England for help and England sent this cannon, with around 5 men to help defend it - generous!

This is a musical ship. Meant for kids I imagine, but I was having a fab time banging on the pipes and planks, until I realised a load of adults watching me... reckon they were waiting for a go themselves lol