Day 58: Wed 22 Jun - Port Douglas to Cooktown

Day 58: Wed 22 Jun - Port Douglas to Cooktown

Towed 265km (5,124 towed this trip)

20 – 26°. Partly cloudy all day with light winds in Port Douglas, winds becoming stronger and gusty in Cooktown. The forecast is for winds gusting to 60km/h for the rest of the week in Cooktown, apparently not unusual at this time of year. We drove away from the Big 4 in Port Douglas just before 8:00am, and had a good run back up Mt Molloy onto the Mulligan Highway north to Cooktown. There was very little traffic and road conditions were fantastic  all the way - some of the best this trip. There were a couple of steep but short climbs along the way, but no problem - I'm very happy with the towing, handling and fuel economy of the Wildtrak. Even with about 10km of steep climbing today, pulling almost 3 tonne, we averaged less than 16lt/100km for the trip. We also had a very strong side wind which pushed us around a bit for the last 50km. After 155km, our first stop was for coffee at the Palmer River Roadhouse. We then continued only 31km further to our next stop at the newly opened (in Apr 2022) Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park at Lakeland on the Mulligan Highway. This is a fantastic rest stop and traveller information centre with an impressive interactive sculpture park showcasing communities from Cape York. The park is designed in the shape of a map of Cape York, and there are 16 artworks designed and developed by communities across the cape. We arrived at the Peninsula Caravan Park in Cooktown just after 1230. Our two sites were anywhere we liked in a large open grassed space for ourselves, segregated from the rest of the park. It is nice and shady, but the only concern is for the large trees surrounding us in the current strong gusting winds. After setting up, and a bite to eat for lunch we all set off for a walk about 1.5km into Cooktown for a look around, and to scope out our dinner venue.  The RSL looked very nice, and displayed a good menu at the front entrance, so that was our choice. They even offered a courtesy bus service which we took up.  It's a lovely clean and modern RSL, and dinner was excellent. They had an awesome team of chefs going about their business in the kitchen turning out some wonderful meals - much better quality than we expected to find in Cooktown. 



Coffee stop at the Palmer River Roadhouse - There were plenty of vans and campers heading in the opposite direction from the Cape

Coffee stop at the Palmer River Roadhouse

Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park - artistic work on the toilet walls

Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park


Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park

Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park

Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park - Our destination

Black and White Cockatoos

Lakeland Gateway to Cape York Sculpture Park

Lockhart River Sculture

The paths represent the roads of Cape York

Laura Sculture

The Weipa Sculpture

The Napranum Sculpture

Aurakun Sculpture

Toilet Artwork

Our site at the Cooktown Peninsula Caravan Park

Visiting wildlife - Scrub Turkey

Downtown Cooktown

A nicely established ANZAC Memorial Park

A nicely established ANZAC Memorial Park


A nicely established ANZAC Memorial Park - More toilet artwork


A nicely established ANZAC Memorial Park

A quirky Real Estate Mural in town

One of few nice buildings in Cooktown - The Old bank

Downtown Cooktown - The old Bank of QLD to the left

Downtown Cooktown - a couple of more modern buildings

Downtown Cooktown

Post Office

Former St Mary's Convent, now the James Cook Museum

Don't know but looked nice.


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