Syrup, hot damper and sapotes: Haunting treasures and tales

Cooktown kept us busy. We arrived in the heat of ‘the dry’ day and searched out the coolest thing we could find to do, which ended up being a visit to the Botanic Gardens, where it is all shade and green at this time of the year. We spent half the afternoon there as it was so interesting, and had much of the place to ourselves.

We found a garden devoted wholly to the plants that Joseph Banks and his naturalist colleagues onboard the Endeavour first recorded when they were here repairing the hull of their famous ship. Someone’s lovely idea for an innovative garden which we thoroughly appreciated.

Prior to this, in the gallery at the Botanic Gardens, we visited an exhibition by Vera Scarth-Johnson, who had been a talented local artist, who had painted all the plants systematically recorded by Banks and his botanists in 1770. When she died she left her entire collection to the Cooktown community and in her honour they built a gallery so that her exquisite botanical works might be displayed for others to enjoy. Another lovely contribution by the Cooktown community that really complimented the garden pieces.

We visited a garden devoted to the Chinese: showing what they planted, and how they likely kept the gold miners of the north healthy, providing greens that would have kept them free from diseases such as scurvy. We heard, too, of negative things. The Botanic Gardens in Cooktown came into being pretty much solely as an attempt to limit the land spread by the Chinese who were using trees in this area for their charcoal burners, and to expand their market gardens. To put a stop to this, the authorities claimed they needed the land for a botanic gardens, so the Chinese activities were eventually stalled.

We are endlessly fascinated by the stories of the Chinese here in the north and want to learn more about them, so have that earmarked as a future project for when we have time and access to the right resources.

Further along in the gardens we found our first vanilla orchid plant climbing its fragile way to the sun. Commercial vanilla beans so prized in our cooking grow on plants such as these. We looked for, but could not find, sapotes, so we are still on the hunt for these.

We then visited the old Mercy Convent which has been set up, now, as the James Cook Historical Museum, run by the National Trust with the invaluable assistance of some excellent volunteers, who offer informative talks on early Cooktown, on the story of the Convent itself and the five Irish nuns who ran it, along with tales of Cook and his crew. We listened to all on offer. These volunteers know their subject matter: they knew which day of the week the Endeavour rammed into the reef, and precisely to the minute how long the sailors needed to stay in the north in order to repair it. Far longer than we remembered from school days. Over 40 days, Cook and his men were here, and in that time they managed to befriend the locals, then to deeply offend them, when they refused to share their catch of turtles; then, just before they left, to reconcile with them, in one of the sacred no-war-zone spaces, near their encampment.

This, the devoted Cooktown volunteers argued, was really the first reconciliation with traditional owners in Australia. As well, they argued, Cook’s stay should be considered Australia’s ‘first’ settlement. So, history might need to reconsider the dates on these happenings if our Cooktown volunteers ever lobby long, loudly and well enough.

The museum displays a good-sized anchor left behind by the Endeavour, built from a massive piece of wood trimmed with heavy metal. Also on display is a cannon rescued from its watery grave after being thrown overboard to lighten the ship when she was nearly in her death throes. Museum information panels tell the story of those who uncovered these pieces from deep in the reef, and how they were brought to the surface. Also on display is the trunk of the very tree that the Endeavour was anchored to when it was finally safely moored for repairs after the successful fothering attempt which temporarily stemmed the leakage caused by the coral cuts to its boat hull. Amazing bits of real history here.

Down on the waterfront we found a statue in memory of Captain James Cook sited where he might have stood on Cooktown soil. And all along the waterfront where the Endeavour was beached locals have raised memorials and murals so it is quite a promenade. As well as being picturesque. Cook and his men must have found it quite hard to leave, though one of his diary entries does record swatting hostile mosquitos that were constantly bedevilling them. Luckily, these pesky little critters were not about when we were there — at approximately the same time of year. For that we were thankful.

The next day we visited the historic cemetery which encapsulates Cooktown’s unique multi-cultural history in just a few hectares. One section of the cemetery is devoted to the many Chinese buried here, and a memorial has been raised to them.

We also found a single humble monument in memory of a woman whose name is not known. She is called the Normanby Woman. During the early days of the Palmer River gold rush, around 1886, this white skinned woman was found living with a tribe of local Aborigines. When authorities intervened and removed her from the camp there was a struggle, spears were thrown and the young woman fell from her horse, but still she was captured, and carried away from what had been her home. Though, not to live long. She apparently refused food, and died not long after in Cooktown, reportedly unable to live in the white man’s world. Who she was, and how she came to even be in these parts, is still a complete mystery.

On another headstone in the cemetery, an epic and tragic tale is told of a young mother, Mary Watson, and her baby son, Ferrier. About ten years after migrating from England with her parents, Mary married a beche de mer fisherman and together they moved to Lizard Island, where their little boy, Ferrier, was born in 1881. Later that year, when her husband was away working, the Watson home was attacked by local Aborigines angry at discovering that one of their sacred sites was being occupied by Europeans. Despite putting up a good fight, once Mary lost one of her Chinese servants in the struggle, she decided to flee by sea. With her child and her remaining servant Ah Sam, she pushed out to sea in all that she had to use as a boat: a boiling down tank. They attempted to make land in such an unseaworthy craft. Such steely determination — and fear — they must have been feeling. When Howick Island eventually came into view Mary must have allowed herself a sigh of relief. Her hopes for safe keeping must have been high. But, here, sadly, they were unable to find fresh water. Their last days were recorded in detail in a tragic diary Mary managed to maintain. Desperation for a single drop of water for herself and her little family was evident in every entry. Her journal and their three bodies were found by searchers, but far too late.

The treasures and tales of Cooktown’s history we found really haunting.