Day 51 Saturday 31st August Chillagoe, Caves and Mines

We left Mareeba and drove inland about 180 kms to the small town of Chillagoe. We arrived at the Chillagoe Eco Lodge just before lunch and set up. After lunch we visited “The Hub” to book a tour of one of the caves for tomorrow. Chillagoe is a very small town with very interesting surrounding geology. It has quite a few caves, various marble quarries and the many old ruins from the mining days of the town in the early 1900s. We spent the afternoon visiting some of the interesting land features of the area, visiting a few cave entrances, walking around a lookout of the old smelting area and visiting the cemetery. Returning to the van, we had dinner and then took a short walk with our Eco Lodge guide to the nearby observatory. We had been told about this when we were in Mareeba and had decided that it would be a good thing to do and it was. Out in the middle of nowhere, free from any lights to distract, the night sky was spectacular. The husband and wife team that did the commentary and organised the viewing with the telescope were very knowledgeable and entertaining. We thoroughly enjoyed our night of astronomy.  

Day 50 Friday 30th August Back to Mareeba, the easy way

Our Sunset cruise guide, Nick had given us a voucher for a café that was run by his wife so we thought we would use it and have breakfast out again. After breakfast Rob dropped me off at the Cooktown cemetery and I had a wander through this very interesting and historical cemetery. The information centre had produced a guide to use that showed the interesting graves in the cemetery. I probably spent too much time here but Rob didn’t complain. We then started the drive back to Mareeba. This time we took the bitumen road back and it was an easy drive back to Mareeba. Once back at the van we did a few jobs in preparation for us leaving tomorrow.

Day 49 Thursday 29th August Beautiful Colours

One very interesting fact I learnt yesterday and meant to include in the blog but forgot was the existence of a frog that lays its eggs on the land and when the eggs hatch they are a frog. In other words there is no tadpole stage for these frogs. This fact was learnt when we stopped at the Black Mountain National Park. The mountains looked like they were made up of piles of black rocks that had just been dumped there but of course nature had formed the mountains this way. There was a board telling us about some of the fauna that lived in the mountains and this frog was one of them. This morning we started with a lovely breakfast at a café overlooking the Cooktown Bay. From there we visited the very interesting Captain Cook Museum, housed in a magnificent old former convent building. We both enjoyed learning more about the history of Cooks 7 week stay here while repairing his ship. The journals written by Cook and Banks during this time were interesting reading. After this we headed in a northerly direction and visited the lovely Endeavour Falls and then drove on through the Aboriginal settlement of Hope Vale to Elim Beach. Here we drove along the beach to view some beautiful coloured sands. We returned to Cooktown for lunch and then did a quick history walk of the town. Later in the afternoon we went on a magnificent sunset cruise of the bay, Endeavour River, Leprosy River and 2 Mile Creek. Our guide, Nic gave great commentary and had excellent knowledge of the history of Cooktown. We took our own drinks and were treated with a delicious cheese platter during this tour. Returning to the dock, we made our way to the very traditional “Top Pub” for dinner.