Fully Cooked in Cooktown

'Captain Cook, chased a chook, all around Australia. Lost his pants in the middle of France, and found them in Tasmania.' So we are told in the Cooktown Museum. Must be true, because Cooktown is all about Cook, and the time he spent here in 1770.

He'd pranged his boat near Cape Tribulation and managed to get it to the Endeavour River here, where he was able to park it at a suitable angle against the bank, and carry out repairs.










Cooktown today is a very pleasant and relaxed little town, ideal for spending an easy day at the end of a Far North Queensland bus tour. The day tripper people got only an hour here - the bus driver called them the 'half Cooked'. The two- and three-day people like us got a whole day (the 'fully Cooked').


There are nice cafes and a good Bowlo. There's an excellent Botanic Garden, plus Cook's Lookout on Grassy Hill. And that excellent museum.



The museum also tells you all about the original inhabitants of the area, and the usual quota of misunderstandings and reconciliations that took place during his stay.

Cooktown has a a souvenir shop or two as well. There's a rather nice one where you can buy an unfriendly life sized crocodile.

FNQ loves its crocs

And they're everywhere!

Actually they're not. But the scary stories are, and the warning signs are on every beach and beachside footpath. And they want all the tourists to have a crocodile sighting or two. Who'd want to visit Far North Queensland and not see a croc?

Here are some freshwater crocs in the Cairns Zoom Dome zoo.












And here's the enormous saltwater croc they keep there, just under one of the zip lines that the more intrepid tourists zip along.

On the Daintree River cruise we saw one lurking at the water's edge. It was a miniature three-year-old one though, only about a metre long.









On the bus above the Bloomfield River, a very large one was pointed out, sitting stationary on the mud flat, with its mouth open. I think it was real.
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The one below was in the new Cairns aquarium.

A zoo called Zoom

It's not only a zoo. It offers 'adrenaline-pumping activities' too, involving high altitude obstacle courses and zip line rides above enormous live crocodiles.

It's in a dome on top of the roof of Cairns casino, and it's much more fun to visit than the gaming rooms downstairs could possibly be.

The animals are mostly free to roam the place, or at least the birds are. They have their preferred areas and best friends, like this king parrot and koala.


Several crocodiles, and useful explanations about the freshwater and saltwater and their differences.

We watched  two young tourists doing the full 'Hi-Zoom' experience. They successfully traversed a long sequence of scary-looking high altitude experiences. They were securely harnessed and attached, but they were a long way up at times, and I hesitated long enough to talk myself out of giving it a go myself.



 If I ever get back to Cairns though......

Cairns' new aquarium

Cairns has a new aquarium, and it's quite the place. It's well worth the somewhat substantial entry fee, what with several hours worth of spectacular exhibits swimming around and above you.

All the usual suspects of course. Sharks, crocodiles, snakes, frogs, colourful crustaceans, incredibly colourful reef fish galore. And some of the tanks are as big as they come.

 

The chap in the first video below rather took my fancy.

And then there are the sharks and the amazing pulsating jellyfish:

Splendid esplanade

Sydney Exponential had a week away last week in Far North Queensland. We flew to Cairns, where we based ourselves while we explored points further north, like the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation, and Cooktown. There were also obligatory trips to Green Island and Kuranda.

Cairns (supposedly pronounced "Cans", though I couldn't quite hear that) revolves around its splendid esplanade. It's several kilometres long, has cafes, fitness stations, great views, and the occasional crocodile visit. It's a great place to stroll or hang out. There's also a rather fine enormous free swimming 'lagoon', with artificial beach and guaranteed crocodile-free status. As well as a cooling dip, you can join in on the free aqua zumba sessions. Looks great! Watch the video below.

Crikey! Hardened blogger impressed by Australia Zoo!

I must admit I was a bit unsure about Australia Zoo. It's done such a good job of selling itself over the years, I thought disappointment might be the order of the day. And the crass commercialism might be a bit much for me, and would they actually be treating the animals humanely?

It wasn't really like that though. It was a rather better, more rewarding, and at times quite a spectacular experience. I thought it was well worth the unusually large entrance fee. And I've no doubt its educational value and the conservation activities it carries out do indeed outweigh any indignities inflicted on the odd individual animal.

There are of course animals from all over the world, in mostly generous enclosures. You can spend most of a day strolling the grounds. You get to see (and pet) beautiful non-venomous snakes, and the enthusiastic young Bindi look-alikes show off their eagles, owls, and kookaburras for you.

There are feeding shows involving many of the animals, which include a respectable collection of tigers.

The enormous 'Crocoseum' stadium was the location for the most spectacular event. Not only were crocodiles wrangled, but there was the most unexpected display of bird wrangling, the like of which I'd never before witnessed. A series of parrots mainly, did amazing tricks, like high-speed aerial acrobatics. One red tailed black cockatoo even stole a $5 note from a designated audience member, and then returned it to her!

 Here it is flying up to grab it.

Now it's on its way back to return it.












The crocodile feeding was a bit of an anticlimax, maybe because Australia Zoo founder Steve Irwin was filmed doing so much of it.

A good day out anyway. Five stars. Crikey!