7th June 2026: packed up and went to the Botanic Gardens to have a look at the Vera Scarth-Johnston collection of botanical illustrations. She was a botanist and a botanical artist who moved to Cooktown in 1972 at age 60 years entranced by the natural beauty of the Endeavours River area. She made it her life’s work to find the 200 plants that Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander identified on Cooks voyage to Cooktown. She managed to locate and draw 160 of them before Parkinson’s disease meant she could no longer paint. They are housed in Natures Powerhouse at the Cooktown Botanic gardens.

We then drove on to Laura via Lakelands. We set up camp behind the Peninsula Hotel and went in search of the Quinkan cultural centre. It was closed but a man named Roy introduced himself to us and offered to open it up and so we spent a couple of hours there. We asked him about seeing Quinkan rock art and he said meet me at 8.30am and I will show you some. When we googled him we found out that he was Roy Banjo a well known indigenous expert in Quinkan art, so we really lucked out! 

We had dinner at the Pub- grilled barramundi for me and a hamburger for Nic

                   Cook town Orchid


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