Day 8: Townsville to Cooktown, getting remote now…

After enjoying a delicious and hearty cooked breakfast with old friends Michael and Helene, who whom I stayed with and live in Townsville, it was time to venture further north. There was only a couple of hours flying so I planed to leave at lunchtime, it’s been great to have two nights here in Townsville and a whole day sort of off. Yesterday some media activity with RAAF in the morning, with send off to the Growlers, then took Michael for a local flight in Southern Sun. The RAAF controllers were awesome, a pretty busy airport with mix of commercial, civil and military airspace, yet they accommodated a local flight including a lap of Maggie Island - all at 500’. It was a gorgeous day and the water was glistening and I can see why people love Magnetic Island so much, around the rear of the island there was small, isolated cute bay after a bay… I could imagine heading out there in a small boat or Kayak and choosing a peaceful day of reading and swimming…

Departure to Cooktown at lunchtime, with weather due early afternoon, so was keen to get moving once there, and was surprised to find that Townsville was a CTAF with tower closed - so was quickly away and tracking up the coast making my now standard and kind of beloved call, if not a little cheeky…. “Oscar Mike Sierra is tracking coastal, maintaining 500, northbound for Pt Cook”

There was the odd rain shower along the way, but all isolated and easy to fly around, but made a point of getting wet enough to give the plane a wash 👏🌝

Definitely getting remote now, a few small towns along the way but mostly long uninhabited beaches.

Made a quick pitstop in Cairns (to run to JB HiFi to pick up a new ipad, older one locking up all the time) and was airborne again within a couple of hours. Again the controllers were fantastic in making allowance for my coastal tracking mission.

Arrived into Cooktown area around 5pm, so sun starting to get low on the horizon, its all but dark here by 6pm…( and seems that even on Saturday food shops shut by 6.30. ) The town faces the Endeavour River, where G&M alighted on this day 100 years ago, there are plenty of boats more but there was still a nice stretch of river for doing a splash’n’go, then climbed out abeam the town for a low level downwind and into Cooktown airport. Pretty quiet there, one chopper on the hard and impressed to see a big maintenance hangar there.

The local taxi brought me into town and we discussed accom options and when I saw the rustic old Cooktown Hotel I knew that’s where I had to stay - I love outback pubs, and this I guess is the classic Queenslander coastal equivalent.

I’m looking forward to looking around.

Cheerio, standing by…