{"id":148,"date":"2013-01-01T17:31:37","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T09:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.joel.net.au\/?p=148"},"modified":"2026-06-24T20:36:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:36:34","slug":"cooktown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/2013\/01\/01\/cooktown\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooktown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Boats
Boats moored on Endeavour River flowing past Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I felt a little guilty leaving Cooktown this morning. It really is a tiny town (pop. ~2000), but it has a very rich history and sits in beautiful surroundings. I really felt I was probably missing out on something by leaving after only 24 hours. There is something special about standing on the same ground James Cook stood on, contemplating how he was going to get through the Great Barrier Reef while stuck there for 38 days (I think it was). <\/p>\n

\"Cooktown,
Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Captain
Captain James Cook statue in Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Historical connections seem to have a lot more impact when the environment has been preserved as it was (probably) at the time, and Cooktown never seemed to grow large enough to distract from the historical event. I think that is one of the special things about Australia. When you do reflect on its history, it seems a lot easier without shopping malls or suburban sprawl getting in the way. <\/p>\n

\"View
View up the coast along the South Pacific Ocean from Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think I also find it a little hard to start heading south after working so hard to keep moving north. I think I had the same mixed feelings about leaving Darwin back in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"Boats
Boats moored on the Endeavour River flowing past Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Boats
Boats moored on the Endeavour River next to Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cooktown
Cooktown Museum, Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lighthouse
Lighthouse in Cooktown, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jungle
Jungle Geranium \/ Ixora (Ixora coccinea) flowers in Cooktown Botanic Gardens, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Flame
Flame Tree \/ Royal Poinciana flowers (Delonix regia) in Cooktown Botanic Gardens, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt a little guilty leaving Cooktown this morning. It really is a tiny town (pop. ~2000), but it has a very rich history and sits in beautiful surroundings. I really felt I was probably missing out on something by leaving after only 24 hours. There is something special about standing on the same ground… Continue reading Cooktown<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-queensland","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3sHuW-cooktown","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2666,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/2666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}