COOKTOWN October 2015
It’s been a long while; too long, since our last trip to Cooktown. My primary reason for this visit was to authenticate Ellie’s narrative in The Story of Emmaline the sequel to A Hint of Darkness . I needed to make her words fresh and vital and confirm my own recollections. This is an amazing community, a compilation of old and new perfectly blended. Picture us with a perfect view of the leisure craft and fishing boats moored at the wharf on the Endeavour River. We sip coffee and inhale (they were too scrumptious to simply eat) French pastries just meters away from Captain Cook’s landing place. On my original trip to Cooktown I was doing historical research for A Hint of Darkness , the museum is a treasure trove of records relating back to the exciting and also dark days of Cooktown’s beginnings. In 1873 The Palmer River Gold rush transformed virgin bush into a thriving port in just weeks. However, such monumental change cannot be wrought without cost. Now both novels are complet