Townsville was where Lesley’s grandfather lived and we were able to locate his house.  It’s still there, in the best part of town, and currently undergoing a bit of a reno.  Another reminiscence ticked off. 

But Magnetic Island was what we’d come here for, so we swiftly replaced the water pump (not worthy of commentary) and then left ATGANI with yet another auto-electrician and jumped the barge for 4 nights at Picnic Bay. (Just quickly, on auto electrics, I was still sceptical that our solar was delivering all that it should but have now been convinced that it’s as good as it’s going to get.  Direct sun and plenty of it seems to be the message.)

It was Lesley’s birthday, so we opted to stay at a swish little beach house at Picnic Bay, newly built and called Rock Salt 2.  Only one bedroom but plenty of other space, a plunge pool, a big day bed and a grassy strip leading directly to the beach.  A short walk to the Picnic Bay pub and The Reef Bar Café, the island’s best breakfast and coffee shop, in our opinion.

When Lesley was last here, some 65 years ago, the ferries used to come into this bay but now they use Nelly Bay which is where all the development is – not that there’s very much of it.  Maggie is sleepy, with a backpacker vibe and all very relaxing.  Activities centre on walking, fishing, swimming and, of course, drinking.  We found some good Modern Aussie dining at Saltwater👍.  Most of the rest was ordinary fare, but fresh prawns and oysters stopped us from suffering too much!

So, walking it was.  We did go down in the woods and we did get a big surprise – koalas in trees along the Fort Walk!  They’re not often seen in the wild but they’re reportedly thriving here.  Naturally, as befits 20+ hours a day sleepers, they didn’t do much except sit in the tree, but were cute nonetheless.

This walk also took us to the various fortifications and observation posts built for WW2 on the eastern side looking out across the Coral Sea.  It was busy times back then with maybe 50 ships at anchor much of the time – there was only one tanker parked way out at sea on our day.  I liked the idea that war time children readily learned to count to 50, but not much further. The weather was great, the views from all points expansive and we chose not to venture very far.  A good trip back in time but, as the Michelin guide has it, worth a detour but not a trip.

Some days of R&R gave way to travel further up the page.  We’d never been to Cooktown and that was as far north as were planning on this trip. We got there with an overnight stop near Mt Bartle Frere (Queensland’s highest mountain we’d learned in Social Studies – it’s a pathetic 1611 metres.)

Cooktown’s caravan parks looked ordinary but we lucked out by choosing to stay at Endeavour River Escape, about 15km out of town.  Basically a farm stay but carefully set up with massive, flat, grassy sites in amongst beautiful trees and with rustic but excellent facilities.  Perhaps our nicest booked campsite anywhere so far.  If there wasn’t enough sun (there wasn’t – it was partly shaded, partly cloudy), it was OK to use a generator during the day without disturbing anyone 👍👍.

This was another place to go into the woods and look at the waterholes and fishing sites – given that the fishing spots all had barrier fences for you to stand behind in case of crocs, we didn’t really go very far into these woods.  Some of the woods came to us though – a few Lace Monitors, all about a metre long, wandered across the campsites every day.  We got the fright of our lives when we stepped out of the van only to find a huge goanna at the foot of our steps.  Cue wussy squealing…and that was me.

It turned out we were there for The Cooktown Festival.  It felt like BackRoads on TV, where they only ever visit to be surprised by a festival.  Lots of stuff happening but ineptly publicised – it was more than 24 hours before we heard that it was on!  We took in a boat trip on the river, shopped at some market stalls, missed a talk about Joseph Banks at the Botanical Gardens, missed another talk about James Cook at the Museum and didn’t even contemplate participating in the 4km “fun” run up Grassy Hill – a seriously steep uphill journey, much tougher than the Balmoral Burn.  Big prize money too, so no doubt, “all the cracks had gathered to the fray”.  Should you come this way, festival or no, visit the Museum.  An old convent crammed full of all sorts of junk but also including plenty of interesting history in a beautiful building.

 As befits the town’s name, there’s a statue of Cook – it calls him a Captain but he was only a Lieutenant when he ran aground and then recovered here, back in 1770.  There’s plenty of indigenous land and involvement around about and even an attempt at recognising that Cook and the natives reached a small form of reconciliation after his 7 week stopover – it didn’t all go swimmingly at the beginning. Personally, I think he should have handed over at least one of the turtles.  I enjoyed David Hunt’s description in Girt: “Cook, belying his subsequent reputation as a master mariner, then ran the Endeavour straight up the guts of the Great Barrier Reef, a structure that can be seen from outer space, but apparently not from one hundred yards.”

Our sunset boat tour also had an excellent safety briefing for these croc infested waters.  “Those life jackets aren’t going to help if we sink – all you need to do is swim faster than just one other person”. 

We liked Cooktown a lot.  It had a good feel to it and it helped that our campground was a beauty.  And we were looking forward to Port Douglas which we already knew we liked.  There is a way directly south from Cooktown via Bloomfield and Cape Tribulation but with a big van on the back, we judged it too risky.  Later in the week, when up at Daintree and Cape Trib, we saw one or two smaller vans coming through, which showed it was both possible and, for us, dopey – narrow, windy, steep and that’s the sealed section.

In Port Douglas, the entirely ordinary Pandanus CP placed us on the fence next to Dougie’s Backpackers but at least they placed us – everything else was pretty much booked out.  The backpackers did what backpackers do on a Saturday night but it wasn’t total disaster.  The weather had also turned hot – humid as we expected but over 30°, which we didn’t.  Four Mile beach saved us each afternoon with a swim and some shady sand to sit on.

We chose to go into the woods again, hoping for more surprises, and this time took a guided tour with a local cultural bent, Walkabout Adventures.  As it turned out, we travelled up to Daintree, crossed the river on the ferry and continued to Cape Tribulation.  We experienced lots of bush medicine, a few animals, some damper with golden syrup, an ice cream shop and precious few cultural insights – we had obviously, but unknowingly, taken the sight-seeing tour but given that it went from 8am to 3pm, it was a fair value attempt at a “half-day”.   The key cultural learning was that the indigenous people north of Daintree had been in favour of the road going through in the 70’s because it would make it easier to get to Daintree and Cairns to shop!  True or False – who knows?  I still blame Joh.

Tour highlights included seeing a Cassowary and its chick (too quick for a photo but it looked like a dinosaur and was incredibly colourful), a bunch of fruit bats (yuk!), a green peppermint stick insect (squirts peppermint smelling mucous when disturbed) and zero crocodiles.  We were treated to an amazing demonstration of pushing your hand into a green-ant leaf nest to agitate the ants, collecting thousands on your hands then rubbing your hands to crush them, thus producing a very effective nasal inhalant – bush Vicks, he called it, thus confusing the visiting Americans.  Almost as horrifying was the Blue Cheese (or Vomit) Fruit which tasted very much like blue cheese and reputedly fixes all cholesterol issues – another problem solved.  Finally, a pandanus palm leaf applied to the forehead for headache acupuncture.  All in all, a pretty good day – just not what we had expected.

A couple of decent meals (Wrasse & Roe 👍; Zinc 👍) and some wonderful scenery rounded out a happy stay in Port.  We were even shown the beach where Lara Bingle asked, “So where the bloody hell are you?”. 

With Scotty from Marketing in charge she should have asked, “So what could possibly go wrong?”.