Each week we have been journalling our personal family tour diary in our weekly newsletters, but we’ve decided the pictures we’re capturing and the memories we’re creating are worth sharing more widely. This country of Australia is so amazing and it deserves to be shared!
27th August to 3rd September
Saturday 27th August
We said goodbye to the beautiful Daintree Rainforest and started our drive to Cooktown. It was Saturday and should have only been a 4 hour drive. It’s unanimous with our kids now – that’s not a long drive!
We stopped about 2.5 hours in for a rest at the infamous Palmer River Roadhouse. 30 minutes later we tried to start Kaley, our big green bus and this happened:
Mmm – not good. A blown head gasket. This bus is going nowhere. There’s no phone coverage so we unload the car from the trailer and drive 20 minutes up the road to the lookout. There we make a few emergency calls about towing the bus, mechanics and accommodation in Cooktown because we’re running the Mad Food Science Program at Endeavour Christian College on Monday. Our mission to Transform Children’s Health, One Lunchbox At A Time must go on.
Sunday 28th August
Sunday we say goodbye to Kaley and drive off in Michaelangelo (the name of our XTrail) to Cooktown. We arrive mid morning to our cabin at Big 4 Cooktown Holiday Park.
Unfortunately because we need to be back at Kaley by Tuesday for the tow truck to pick her up, we really only have the rest of Sunday left to do sight-seeing. Monday is a work day. We head straight up to the lookout that overlooks where Captain Cook came ashore after hitting the reef at Cape Tribulation. It also looks across all of Cooktown – a sight to behold. It’s a stunning lookout created by funds provided by the community. We learn about the Aboriginal dreamtime story about why the river snakes it’s way through the Cape. We really love the many dream time stories as we travel.
Then we head over to the Captain Cook Museum / Cooktown Visitor Information Centre, where the actual anchor and cannon from Captain Cook’s ship – HMS Endeavour – is permanently housed. The museum is an incredible collection of artefacts that tell the rich story of Cooktown. This is an absolutely amazing museum. Really informative for adults but well set-up for kids too, with clues for them to look out for, and gifts when they hand their findings back in.
At this museum, once again we feel the full impact of what European settlers did to the Aboriginal community – this journal entry by Cook wraps it up:
“In short they seemed to set no value on upon anything we gave them, nor would they ever part with anything of their own for any article we could offer them. This, in my opinion, argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessaries of life, and that they have no superfluities.”
The Chinese also played a significant role in Cooktown too. Their story of the role they played in food, opium, clothing and retail stores is so interesting.
Over these last 10 months, our kids (and us) have really developed an appreciation of just how important the aboriginal and Chinese communities are to the history of this wonderful country, but sadly also how poorly they have been treated. Especially the aboriginals – even though I grew up in a suburb with a lot of aboriginals, and one of my best friends – Jimmy Bell – that I walked to school with for many many years, was an aboriginal, I seriously had no idea of their culture and how it has been systematically destroyed. I know some people are critical of the way many aboriginals live and some say they are beyond help, but I think we ask the question of whats at the root cause of how a culture that lived so simply has become so adulterated?
Later in the afternoon, we head for a walk throughout town. Cooktown is such a pretty town – the main pathway has beautiful colour mosaics with key messages about the town all along it. In the centre of town is a musical ship where you can play different parts of the ship to make music (well if that’s what you could call the sound coming out of what we were playing). Later that night we also went to watch the feeding of some gropers – they were huge.
Monday 29th August
We arrive at Endeavour Christian College at 8.15am to set up for The Mad Food Science Program. Bel stays there for the day to run 2 big sessions plus a parent workshop. Israel goes back to the Big 4 Holiday Park where they very generously let him have a late check out of 3pm.
I had a blast at this school – we ran classes with the entire school population from Prep (first year of school) to seniors. The school also has a service dog who faithfully sat through the classes and the kids even tried to give him some green smoothie to have.
By 4pm, we were back on the road to Palmer River Roadhouse. Along the way, we stopped at Black Mountain. What a spectacular sight – and again another one of Australia’s World-Exclusive places. At Black Mountain, there are 3 types of animals that live in no other place in the world than here at Black Mountain.
Tuesday 30th August
We spend much of the morning getting the bus prepared for the tow truck. We have to pack everything away and tape up the drawers and cupboards.
The tow truck arrives about 4 hours late. We watch with heart in mouth as Scott (the tow truck driver) loads Kaley on to his truck. At 5.30pm we watch her drive away on the truck. Suffice to say, I had quite a few tears. Aside from the bus and our belongings on the inside, the only other possessions we have are stored in half a garage back in NSW in a friends house. So pretty much Scott had our worldly belongings in his hands.
Wednesday 31st August to Saturday 3rd September
We set-up camp at Cairns Holiday Park – this will be our home for a while. On Friday 1st September we finally got the quote from the mechanic – a very big ouch. They also told us the repairs will take until Monday 12th September. Here’s a few photos of the engine and the head gasket after the mechanics took it apart to take a look:
On Tuesday or Wednesday next week, we will pack up the car, trailer and camping equipment and drive to Townsville to fulfil our work commitments. We’re not letting this problem with the bus stop our mission to Transform Children’s Health, One Lunchbox At A Time. It hurts our wallet, but we still have our health, our passion, and our commitment.
See you in Townsville!