Close encounters

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At last, the authentic slice of Australiana I’ve been yearning for. Overgrown with mangroves and pandanas, Cooktown’s Endeavour River and its maze of lagoons ooze an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere - so twisted is the network of tributaries that it would be easy for the uninitiated to get lost and simply disappear forever.

It reminds me of the scene in Crocodile Dundee when the hopelessly out-of-her depth, innocent but dumb Linda Kozlowski sets off to show Mick she can go walkabout on her own. She’s a New Yorker after all. She can handle it. A dubious Mick tracks her – close enough to save a damsel in distress but far enough away that she can’t see him – and we know just what he’s thinking as she bends over the billabong (duhh!) in her dumb ’80s butt-floss bodysuit before he jumps out of nowhere to put a knife through the skull of a croc that’s suddenly hanging off the end of her water bottle.

There’s no '80s butt-floss bodysuits out here, of course, but the place reminds me, just the same.

I hear ya, Captain Cook

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“I climbed one of the highest hills that overlooked the harbour, which afforded by no means a comfortable prospect.” - British explorer James Cook, on discovering Cooktown, in far north Queensland, in June 1770.

Surprise! It’s raining again! But I dig Captain Cook. He had the coolest way with words. I discovered this phrase on the sign beside Molly, on the very spot Cook himself had climbed to on that day in 1770. It's my new favourite saying. I’ll be sure to try it out when we get home:

Friends: “So, how was the camping?” “
Me: “Well, you know, it afforded by no means a comfortable prospect.”
Friends: “What about the weather?”
Me: “Again with the no comfortable prospect.”
Friends: “Oh get over yourself. My God, you bitch a lot. You could’ve been eaten by a croc.”
Me: “That may well have afforded me a more comfortable prospect, and a mercifully quick end to this soggy holiday.”

Of the many things said about Captain Cook, here's one that would also apply to my annoying husband: “He left nothing unattempted”. (Especially if it afforded me by no means a comfortable prospect.)

Courting the kangaroos

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Surrounded by wild wee wallabies at the botanic gardens in Cooktown in Far North Queensland, Molly and Annie get plenty close enough to look, but never to touch, before their furry friends hop, skip and jump away.