Cooktown

Drove to Cooktown and eventually found a camp spot at the racecourse – all 4 van parks were fully booked and the Endeavour River Escape is 17km out of town. We thoroughly enjoyed fish and chips at Thomas’ place right on the marina. He convinced us about the amazingly fresh and sustainable provenance of his fish and prawns so we decided to return that evening for prawns and to see him feeding giant grouper. We entertained ourselves during the day by going to the oldest Botanical Gardens in Australia and tried to avoid getting too hot. We drove to the lookout and assured ourselves that Cooktown’s location really is spectacular, with the big harbour and the surrounding mountains that come right to the sea. Thomas was impressive as expected, well his giant grouper were. He slapped the water with fish carcases and the grouper sucked them up, creating a big splash and spectacle.

It was beautiful on a cloudy day - imagine what it would have been like on a sunny day!

They were big grouper - not sure if was safe for this little girl to sit there, but no-one got hurt so all's well that ends well.