Cooktown Teen

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With a birthday on the way, and a dwindling fresh food supply, we set out to meet our friends in Cooktown.

Whales, whales, everywhere.

We anchored in the Endeavour River, near where Cook beached his boat for repairs after running up on Endeavour Reef. These were both named after the fact. If you’re not familiar with Cook’s voyage in the region, you will be clubbed over the head by Cook history upon landing here.

The Cooktown museum is housed in a beautiful old building. We’d visit another day.

Today we’d hike a couple of miles to the beaches and up the hills.

The view of the very shallow Endeavour River. We don’t currently have a working depth sounder, so the current anchoring method involves moving very very slowly, and then dropping anchor directly on top of previous anchoring spots reported on the charts. We haven’t run aground yet.

Just over halfway there. The box is about a month older than me, and I’d say we’ve each aged about the same, from the looks of it. You really have to wonder if this time capsule is going to be anything but a box of sludge when it’s opened. Again, kind of like me in another 50 years.

Cooktown is a pleasant enough place. A solid small-town vibe. From the looks of it, the majority of the town’s visitors are overlanders (mostly 4×4 off-road travelers).

Cupcake preparations in full swing.

Possibly one of the best “sports” ever—Australian handball. The kids play it non-stop. Gotta love a game that requires nothing but a $3 ball and a sidewalk crack to play.

We’ve all become rather addicted to the nice parks and free gas barbecues found all over Australia.

The parents absolutely loved these slide whistles we got the kids. They played beautiful music, or excruciating ear-splitting screams.

Close your eyes and pretend that we were able to get the candles to stay lit in the wind.

Teenagers tend to get lumped into a group as being… problematic. I’m not sure if we’re just lucky, or if our kids are just especially awesome, because I wouldn’t even consider dropping them into a teen stereotype.

It’s hard for us to understand the appeal of a “special gamer keyboard” when you’ve already got a perfectly good laptop, but it’s clear that for Lowe and his friends this was a birthday present win.

And the sun goes down on a memorable birthday for Lowe. Happy 13th birthday, Buddy.

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10 Comments on “Cooktown Teen”

  1. Reply

    Happy Birthday, Lowe! Can’t believe you’re 13 already. Seems like yesterday when you were born 🙂

  7. Reply

    Happy birthday Lowe! Feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago that we were watching you push a baby stroller across the empty parking lot in Mazatlan 🙂 Love seeing these updates on the fam!

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