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Cooktown has a few thousand people and is the end of the paved roads as you go north on the east coast of Australia.  The paved road to Cooktown was finally completed in 2006 so we decided to drive up for a visit - about 7 hours from Cardwell.  From here on it's some of the most dreadful four-wheel-drive routes you can imagine.  This is looking down into Cook Anchorage, about a mile in from the ocean.  Captain James Cook, the most famous of all the Pacific explorers, was the first European to document a landing in Australia.  He first landed down near Sydney, then worked his way up the coast.  Not knowing about the Great Barrier Reef, he got hemmed in and ran aground, ripping a huge hole in the bottom of his boat.  Thousands of miles from any assistance, they did a heroic job of keeping her afloat and finding this little river entrance before she sank.  They ran her aground on the sandbar in the left center of the photo and worked for months to repair her.  In the meantime they explored the area and documented the first really extensive meetings with the aboriginals.