World heritage site: The mouth of the Daintree River in north QueenslandFor a holidaymaker, waiting at an airport for a delayed flight is an occasional inconvenience. For a travel writer, it's an occupational hazard. But if you have to wait, the terminal building at Cooktown Airport is as good a place as any to while away the time.
Cooktown is in the north of Queensland, Australia. Its airport isn't so much an airport as a field with a single runway, and the terminal building isn't so much a terminal building as a Portakabin with ambition.
But it has its charms. I knew the flight would be delayed when the chap driving the transfer bus pulled over to take a call on his mobile and announced to his three passengers that 'the Dash 8 has gone technical, so they're sending up a Cessna, but it'll take a little time to get that organised'
After which he drove sedately to the airport, unloaded our luggage, weighed it - and us - took our tickets, handed out our boarding passes, loaded the luggage on to a trolley and pushed it towards the gate in the fence. Cooktown Airport is also a monument to multi-tasking.
Sitting on a wooden bench on the veranda overlooking the field and its fringe of trees, I relaxed in the gentle sunshine of a May morning and reflected on the delay I'd experienced several days earlier at Heathrow. That hadn't been caused by anything 'going technical' but simply because Heathrow is so busy that the slightest hitch to one flight affects those that follow.
Let's return to Queensland. Not to that sunlit veranda at Cooktown Airport but to a large tract of land several miles to the north, a huge area of sandstone escarpments, rainforest and scrub which is the ancestral territory of the Guugu-Yimithirr people. They are one of two Aboriginal nations - the Kuku Yalanji is the other - who have lived in the south-east corner of Cape York for tens of thousands of years.
For reasons we needn't dwell on, I wanted to spend some contemplative time in the Australian bush and was lucky enough to spend part of it in the company of Willie Gordon, an elder and storyteller of one of the clans that make up the Guugu-Yimithirr. It was a heartening and humbling experience, for the reality of outback Australia is a world away from the travesty that television presents as a setting for cavorting 'Celebrities'.
Local insight: John Carter meets Aboriginal elder Willie GordonWalking with Willie Gordon, listening to his tribal stories, his explanation of ancient rock art and his dissertations on the uses of various shrubs and plants, I came to understand something of the philosophy of the oldest people on the planet.
We talked about all manner of things as the day wore on. Of life and death and destiny and what control we can exercise over the last of that trio. Willie showed me a plant that, when rubbed between the palms, turns into soap. Another from which drinkable water can be obtained. At his invitation, I tasted a handful of tiny lemon ants and listened to his explanation of how nourishment is provided by them and by a variety of plants and shrubs.
Many of the early settlers died of hunger and thirst when they were surrounded by food and water - if only they had known where to look.
My Queensland trip had other memorable moments. Checking in to a luxurious spa hotel in the heart of the Daintree rainforest, I discovered I was the only guest.
As it had been something of a last-minute booking, did I mind if they carried on with the planned maintenance work the next day? Of course not, I replied, and was promptly whisked off for a complimentary - and compensatory - 'treatment'.
This involved wattle wood oil and sea salt, ylang ylang and ' soulhealing sacred earth', and a severe pummelling by a New Zealand lady named Stephanie who had very aggressive thumbs. I think it did me good.
I don't know much about spas, but I reckon the Daintree Eco Lodge deserves all the nice things the experts say about it. Its 15 lodges are located in 30 acres of the World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park and the food is excellent, too - kangaroo steak and crocodile in tortellini being a speciality.
The next morning, I woke to the sound of chainsaws as the intrusive forest was 'maintained'. On my way to breakfast, I spotted Stephanie in her skivvies on a flat roof, doing some industrial-strength sweeping and keeping those thumbs in trim.
The reason for the trip north from Brisbane was to sample some of the tourism projects run by Native Australians. Which is how I came to be with Willie Gordon and, on my way to him, with Linc and Brandon Walker in the mangroves that fringe the wide sands of Cooya Beach, a little north of Port Douglas.
The real outback: Crossing Emmagen Creek at the start of the Bloomfield TrackThey tried to teach me how to throw a spear, but with little success. But that didn't matter because as far as I was concerned, it was their knowledge of the mangroves and the shoreline that fascinated me. And, of course, there was Cooktown.
I got there by way of the Bloomfield Track, something of an adventure in itself.
Back in 1965, one man and a bulldozer cleared a track north from Cape Tribulation to the Bloomfield River, taking just three weeks to cover 20 miles.
It wasn't until the Eighties that a further 28 or so miles were cleared to link Bloomfield to the Black Mountain National Park and the main road to Cooktown. That took much longer because of what our driver called 'conservation issues', and what one of my fellow passengers called 'bloody tree-huggers'. This is four-wheel-drive territory - preferably with somebody else doing the driving. Steep gradients, unforgiving rocks, the encroaching forest and streams to be forded mean you can't take your eyes off the road for an instant.
'Did you know the Daintree is the oldest rainforest in the world?' asked one of my companions as we jolted down towards a wide river bed. I grunted. 'It's 65million years older than the Amazon,' he added, as we sloshed through the water. I grunted again.
We finally hit Mulligan Highway's bitumen for the last few miles to Cooktown - a destination that justified every bounce and bump of the journey. A laid-back seaside community-with a crop of comfortable hotels and motels - I was in the Seaview Motel on the Esplanade - and some of the friendliest Aussies I have met.
Cooktown's claim to fame, and the reason it bears its name, is that James Cook spent 48 days there in 1770 while repairs were carried out to his ship Endeavour. That's how the Endeavour River got its name, and why there's a statue of Cook in the park, an annual re-enactment of his landing and first contact with the Guugu-Yimithirr people, and a James Cook museum. There's a lot more, too. I really enjoyed my time there.
Pride of Cooktown: Captain James Cook's statue in a local parkThe folk involved in Cooktown's tourism were particularly happy because the 'sealing' of the main highway had recently been completed, so the Silver Migrants would now have tarmac under their wheels all the way to the town's motels and campsites.
'Most of them haven't come before because they never take their RVs and caravans off-road,' I was told. 'Even if the track is smooth and wide, the majority won't forsake the tarmac. But now there's tarmac all the way, so we should be seeing many more of them.'
Silver Migrants, it transpires, are folk of a certain age who head north in winter, bringing their home comforts in towed caravans or 'Recreational Vehicles' and spending weeks in the warm of Queensland.
Not for them the hazards and excitement of the Bloomfield Track, over which I had travelled in a sturdy, custom-built bus. I thought about what they had missed as I sat on that veranda, waiting for my delayed flight, and decided I preferred my way of getting around.
Ahead of me was a stay in a superb safari camp at Mareeba, an hour and a half by road from Cairns, and, on my return south, 'quality time' in Brisbane - a city that knows how to provide it. But that's a tale for another time.
The Cessna 404 appeared, dropping down for a smooth landing. The pilot turned out to be the most pleasant surprise on what had been a journey of overwhelmingly pleasant surprises.
Jemma Heatley, aged 25, has been flying since she was 16 (too young to drive a car).
Since our meeting, she has become a First Officer on the larger Dash 8 aircraft, but on that bright May morning she handled the Cessna with so much confidence and skill that I quite forgot I have grandsons who are older than she is.
Yes, I know I am being ageist and sexist, but the skill of Miss Heatley and that flight along the Queensland coast, with the sparkling sea and the Great Barrier Reef below us, are memories I shall cherish.
Along with many others from that sojourn in North Queensland.
Travel factsBridge & Wickers (020 7483 6555, www.bridgeandwickers.co.uk) offers four nights at Peppers Beach Club in Palm Cove with an Adventure North 4WD day tour to Cooktown and a Barrier Reef cruise, three nights at Daintree Eco Lodge with breakfast, return flights on Etihad (www.EtihadAirways.com) to Brisbane, return domestic flights from Brisbane to Cairns on Qantas and private transfers, from £2,075. Aboriginal Rock Art Tours with Willie Gordon start from A$65 (about £37) per person. See www.guurrbitours.com. For further information on Queensland, visit www.experiencequeensland.com.
source: dailymail
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