Cairns to Cooktown Driving Adventure

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A road trip from Cairns to Cooktown is a driving adventure that you won’t forget. The 327km drive takes four hours and is a world of nature, history and fascinating outback characters.

Why visit? With a beautiful harbour, warm climate and historical significance as the first European settlement in Australia, Cooktown’s buildings reflect the sentiment of an earlier time. 

It’s amazing to think that this historic settlement could have become one of Australia’s major centres if the gold hadn’t run out. So tick off these items on your road trip packing list and get yourself in the mood with these inspiring journey quotes. The Cairns to Cooktown road trip is a journey you won’t forget. 

Cairns to Cooktown road trip

Cairns to Cooktown Day Trip

A road trip from Cairns to Cooktown requires a bit of time. If you’re short on time but would still like to see Cooktown, this day trip will allow you to fly to Cooktown and offers some time to explore at your leisure.

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cooktown australia
The trip from Cairns to Cooktown is quite an adventure.

Although Cooktown itself is worth visiting, the journey from Cairns to Cooktown is the main reason to go as there’s plenty to see along the way. Here are the highlights:

Cairns

The drive to Cooktown from Cairns takes four hours along the inland road and five hours along the more scenic coastal road.

Travelling north along the inland road, the lush green tropical vegetation of Cairns was soon replaced by fields of vast dry savannah grassland dotted with giant termite mounds.

After ticking several things to do in Cairns off my list, including snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, visiting the Cairns Aquarium and riding the Kuranda Skyrail up to charming Kuranda Village, I was ready for a Queensland outback adventure. 

Palmer River

cooktown to cairns
On the way from Cairns to Cooktown, the landscape hasn’t changed much since the gold rush days.

We drove through what was once the Palmer River goldfields. 

102 years after the landing of HMS Endeavour, an exploration team led by William Hann struck gold in the Palmer River

The news spread like wildfire and the gold rush was born.

Overnight, Cooktown (then known as Cook’s Town) transformed from an uncivilised backwater into the second largest town in Queensland, with a population of over 30,000.

Within a few months, there were over 500 tents and by 1875 there were 65 hotels, schools, a fire brigade and two churches.

There were large spacious shops that sold everything from ladies clothes to horseshoe nails and Colt revolvers to Chinese tea.

Ships from London, Bremen, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Singapore jostled for wharf space.

Alas, like most gold mining towns, the growth vanished just as swiftly as it appeared and by 1886 the gold rush was almost over.

Despite the brevity of its reign, the Palmer Goldfields produced in excess of £5.5 million worth of gold.

Palmer River Roadhouse

cairns to cooktown
While travelling from Cairns to Cooktown, stop at the Palmer River Pub.

We stopped briefly at the Palmer River Roadhouse before driving on to our lunch spot by a river near the Annan Gorge.

Annan Gorge

cairns to cooktown lunch by the river
Lunch by the river on our Cairns to Cooktown leg. Nobody wants to swim.

The English tourists in our group kept daring each other to jump into the water but even though our guide assured us there were no crocodiles, nobody wanted to put it to the test.

Cooktown

Grassy Hill

Cairns to Cooktown first stop Grassy Hill
Grassy Hill is our first stop upon arriving in Cooktown while on our Cairns to Cooktown journey.

Dusty and weary we arrived at Cooktown by mid-afternoon, our first stop Grassy Hill, which was the hill James Cook stood on to survey his forced landing spot.

On 11 June 1770, the Koko Yalanji tribe stalked a strange boat along the coastline until it stopped at the mouth of the Wahalumbaal Birri River.

While they didn’t welcome the strangers with open arms, they were wary of offending the wawu-nhi, the spirits of their dead ancestors.

The ship was the HMS Endeavour belonging to the King of England which had set sail from Plymouth, England on 26 August 1768 with Lieutenant James Cook was at the helm.

As I looked over the harbour, I could see that the harbour was dotted with sandbanks and shoals, fishing boats and a few sailing boats; mangrove swamps ran wild along the river.

There’s a statue of James Cook, which is an Australian landmark commemorating these events. 

James Cook Museum

Captain Cook Museum in Cooktown Queensland
The James Cook Museum in Cooktown is definitely worth visiting.

I started my exploration of Cooktown at the James Cook Museum which was opened in 1970, during the bicentenary of Cook’s voyage when Queen Elizabeth II visited Cooktown.

The story goes that one local identity, after shaking the Queen’s hand was so overwhelmed that he refused to wash his hand for six weeks.

The museum building has elaborate cast-iron columns and grand high ceilings which were constructed in anticipation of Cooktown’s glorious future.

Surprisingly, for a small town in a remote part of Queensland, the museum has a contemporary look of glass and white canvass sails.

things to do in cooktown
Visiting the James Cook Museum is one of the things to do in Cooktown.

Some of the interesting exhibits include a shell collection and information about Cooktown’s early history.

There are also souvenirs from the HMS Endeavour, a cannon jettisoned from the vessel when it ran aground on Endeavour Reef, and one of the ship’s anchors which was recovered from the reef.

There is an original Chinese joss house for the 20,000 plus Chinese that passed through the town on their way to the goldfields.

At one time, Cooktown even had a separate Chinatown with a permanent population of nearly 3000 people.

Cooktown Botanic Gardens

Cooktown Queensland
Looking for a historic drive? Check out the route from Cairns to Cooktown.

Nature’s Powerhouse, which is located in the Cooktown Botanic Gardens has a depth of information about the animal and plant life of the area.

There are also paintings of the region’s plants and flowers done by local artist Vera Scarth-Johnson.

Top Pub Cooktown

Top Pub Cooktown
One of the things to do in Cooktown is to head to meet the locals at the Top Pub in Cooktown.

Wandering back down the main street, I stuck my head into the courtyard at the Top Pub and struck up a conversation with Doris Doughboy, daughter of King George Doughboy of the Wujal Wujal mission whose tribal land was converted into a Christian Mission.

cairns to cooktown local character
Meeting local characters is one of the highlights of a Cairns to Cooktown trip.

These days, life is very different for the Wujal Wujal.

Doris’ father made a living as a truck driver.

Her niece is a part-time teacher at the local school.

Cooktown Post Office

cooktown post office
The rather quaint Cooktown Post Office.

A fun time to visit Cooktown is during the Discovery Festival is held during the Queen’s Birthday weekend each June, featuring re-enactments of Cook’s arrival. 

Black Mountain National Park

cairns to cooktown black granite boulders
Black granite boulders in Black Mountain National Park is an interesting sight between Cairns and Cooktown.

The next day we headed off to the eerie Black Mountain National Park to gawk at the giant piles of black granite boulders.

Geologists believe the boulders were once a molten mass which solidified deep below the earth’s surface 260 million years ago.

Erosion gradually exposed the granite plug and fractures began to form the boulders we see today.

Legends abound about people, horses and whole mobs of cattle disappearing forever into the labyrinth of rocks.

Lion’s Den Hotel

lions den hotel
The Lion’s Den Hotel is a famous stop on the Cairns to Cooktown drive.

After our morning tea stop at the Lion’s Den Hotel where the locals looked like they were the perfect cast for a movie on the Australian outback.

Then we set off on the Bloomfield track to Cairns, all the while looking out for cassowaries and crocodiles.

“Last week I saw a croc lazing just by that log over there,” says Rick pointing down into a picturesque river surrounded by mountains.

Cape Tribulation

cape tribulation is on the cooktown to cairns route
On the way back from Cooktown to Cairns, we stop at Cape Tribulation.

At Cape Tribulation, the traffic suddenly became much thicker with busloads of tourists who had come on day-trips from Cairns to photograph the rainforest, reef and sea.

 Our last activity before heading back to Cairns was a guided walk along timber boardwalks set up in this awesome Daintree rainforest.

As we approached Cairns, I could not help thinking that if the gold had not run out so quickly, Cooktown might have become one of Australia’s major cities. 

For more things to do in Queensland, read:

 

Cairns to Cooktown Driving Adventure

Cairns to Cooktown Driving Adventure

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Christina Pfeiffer
Christina Pfeiffer is a writer, photographer and video blogger based in Queensland, Australia. She has lived in three continents and her career as a travel journalist has taken her to all seven continents. Since 2003, she has contributed travel stories and photographs to mainstream media in Australia and around the world such as the Sydney Morning Herald, CNN Traveller, The Australian and the South China Morning Post. She has won many travel writing awards and is a full member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers.