TNQ Writer
Welcome to Cooktown, the Tropical North Queensland town whose history and heritage draws 25,000 visitors to it each year.
It’s not just the story of Captain James Cook that you’ll find here, but a rich Indigenous history and plenty of evidence that Cooktown was booming in its gold-rush glory days. For a town that sits on the Cape York Peninsula, what surprises most visitors to Cooktown is its accessibility. All roads lead to Cooktown, whether you take the fully sealed road (the Mulligan Highway from Cairns) in just four hours, choose to four-wheel drive the coastal Bloomfield Track or take the 45-minute flight connection from Cairns. If you find yourself yearning to explore Cooktown yourself, chart your course with this guide to 10 things to do in Cooktown.
Botanic Gardens & bite to eat at the Visitor Information Centre
Cooktown Botanical Gardens
Cooktown Botanical Gardens
Cooktown Botanical Gardens
Cooktown Botanical Gardens
Not all Visitor Information Centres are bloomin’ beautiful, but this one backing onto Queensland’s oldest regional botanic gardens (est. 1878) certainly is. Spend the morning exploring the heritage listed Cooktown Botanic Garden’s 62 hectares, which house five major botanical collections including those species collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander in 1770.
After wandering the Cooktown Botanic Gardens, fuel up with a bite to eat at the onsite café, whose open veranda is the perfect vantage spot to watch the world go by. The café is open seven days a week, dishing up coffee, cake breakfast and lunch. The menu rotates based on seasonality, so you can be assured no two meals will be the same.
If you’d like to work up an appetite for your meal here, step it out along the scenic rim walking track which links the Botanic Gardens to Finch Bay and Cherry Tree Bay – two of the beaches in the area.
Turn back the pages of history at the Cooktown Museum
Cooktown museum
Cooktown museum
Cooktown museum
Cooktown museum
Explore the rich history of Cooktown in Tropical North Queensland. Set in a stunning nineteenth-century convent, Cooktown Museum is a must-see when visiting Cooktown.
Learn the fascinating story of how Lt. James Cook saved the Endeavour after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef and nursed it into Cooktown to repair it. Learn about his experiences here including the first recorded act of reconciliation with the local Guugu Yimithirr peoples.
The Museum celebrates the history of the convent and the nuns and children who lived there until the 1940s. The displays also tell the stories of the Chinese immigrants and the gold rush era in Queensland’s tropical north.
Enjoy sunset at Grassy Hill
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Grassy Hill Lookout Cooktown
Take a (steep) walk or drive up Grassy Hill to the viewing platform at the top. Enjoy the fabulous views of Cooktown, the Endeavour River and the Coral Sea. Bring a picnic to watch the wonderful sunsets.
Share Cook’s experience when he climbed the hill in 1770 to search for a safe passage through the reefs after repairing the Endeavour.
Check out the historic light house built in 1866 where the last lighthouse keeper and his family lived in the 1920s before it was automated. The lighthouse still operates today.
A Sunset Cruise
Riverbend tours
Riverbend tours
Riverbend tours
Riverbend tours
Endeavour river
Endeavour river
Don’t miss the opportunity to experience the magical Endeavour River at this special time of day. Nick, experienced skipper and guide from Riverbend Tours, takes you on a journey of exploration and history while you enjoy a complimentary cheese platter to accompany your drink of choice (BYO).
Cast off
Cooktown Barra Charters Fishing Adventure
Cooktown Barra Charters Fishing Adventure
Cooktown Barra Charters Fishing Adventure
Cooktown Barra Charters Fishing Adventure
Cooktown’s waters offer some great fishing. The wharf is the local’s favourite spot to try and catch a feed. And there are fishing platforms along the waterfront park. Bait up for the chance to reel in Spanish Mackerel, Barramundi, Mangrove Jack, Fingermark, Trevally and more.
If you’ve brought your own boat, check out the Endeavour River – there are a couple of boat ramps – or the Annan River. If the wind permits the local reefs and fantastic fishing are less than an hour offshore. Or take a charter to get the benefit of the local knowledge of where the fish are biting!
Discover Cooktown’s Artistic Tradition
Cooktown Creative Arts, Old Railway Station
Cooktown Creative Arts, Old Railway Station
Cooktown Creative Arts
Cooktown Creative Arts
Despite its gold rush origins, Cooktown has strong art tradition. Nature’s Powerhouse is home to Vera Scarth-Johnson’s beautiful collection of Endeavour River flora. There is a wide range of art and crafts for sale at the Cooktown Creative Arts Centre in the Old Railway Station and the Elizabeth Guzsely Gallery in Charlotte St. Kuku Bulkaway Gallery sell modern indigenous artworks with a local flair.
Retrace the town’s colourful and diverse history
The Cooktown History Centre
James Cook and Joseph Banks spent 7 weeks in Cooktown – longer than anywhere else in Australia. And Cook left a legacy of charts of the east coast that 100 years later showed that Cooktown was the ideal place to establish a port to service the Palmer River Gold finds in 1873.
Cooktown grew rapidly into a vibrant town as the only way in and out of the goldfields – the Queen of the North – a town of 7,000. Promotion in China led to a large Chinese population both in the town and the goldfields.
The History Centre and Waalmbal Birri Heritage & Culture Centre, sitting side by side in Charlotte St, are great places to retrace Cook’s stay and the town’s subsequent development in the late 1800s.
Stroll the beautiful Waterfront Walk
Follow Sherrin Esplanade towards the Coral Sea. Take the river of life path to where the Endeavour was beached.
Check out the Milbi Wall and its pictorial creation stories and representations of Cook’s visit and the 1967 Referendum.
Head on down past the wharf before heading to William Daku park on the waterfront.
