While the rest of our party were off not finding any fish or crabs that wanted to be caught, we slipped into Cooktown for a few days for a bit of a clean up, and to revisit some of the bits we really enjoyed when we were last here.
It's actually not a terribly large place, but there's a bit of interesting history. The bloke who the Poms told us discovered Australia, named the River after his ship, and someone subsequently named the Town after him. There aren't too many relics of the history of English voyaging that predates the anchor of the Endeavour that Jimmy Cook kindly donated to the Museum 250 years ago.
A splendid little museum it is too, and deals with the actual history of the region in a very even handed manner quite dissimilar to that which bounced off the pages of our Social Studies books almost three quarters of a century ago.
Curiously, our Lily hadn't really heard of Lt Cook (who it seems made it to Commander but never actually was a Captain), but she did enjoy being informed of his adventures, just as she did our afternoon roaming the gorgeous botanical gardens with her iPad and plant identifying app.
What would Cook's botanist, Sir Joseph Banks have thought of an eleven year old discovering the plants he had found, no doubt with the same enthusiasm and curiosity?
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