NA ="Cooktown,";
FE1[0]=" Cooktown was founded in 1873 as the port for the Palmer River Goldfields. This was more than a century after Captain James Cook spent 48 days in 1770 on the banks of the Endeavour River repairing his ship. Every June the town cele";
FE2[0]="brates Cooktown's status as Australia's first, if brief, European settlement at a Discovery Festival which includes a colourful re-enactment of Cook's landing. Cooktown is located 326 km (by the inland road) and 235 km (by the coa";
FE3[0]="st road) from Cairns. After Cook came the coastal explorers Phillip Parker King and Allan Cunningham who explored the area in 1819 and climbed and named Mount Cook.  It wasn't until the discovery of gold on the Palmer River that a";
FE4[0]="ny serious settlement was contemplated. The government, deciding the area needed a port, sent George Dalrymple to find a suitable location for one. However, events overtook both Dalrymple and the government when the Leichhardt arr";
FE5[0]="ived at Endeavour River with supplies and 96 people. Overnight the settlement of Cook's Town (as it was first called) grew up. This was a boom town. Within a few months there were over 500 tents and, by 1875, there were an incredi";
FE6[0]="ble 65 hotels, a school, a fire brigade and two churches. The main street meandered on for nearly 3 km. The decline of the goldfields meant the decline of Cooktown. However, it had a sustained recovery when tin was found in the ar";
FE7[0]="ea and it maintained its status for some years when vessels would stop on their way from South-East Asia to the ports further down the coast. Fortunes turned again in 1907 when a cyclone nearly destroyed the town. It had a brief r";
FE8[0]="ecovery during World War II but it wasn't until the current North Queensland tourist boom that it began to achieve a level of success comparable with the 1870s and 1880s.";
FE9[0]="";
LA1[0]=" Cooktown lies in Australia’s Tropical Rainforests which cover approximately 900,000 square hectares and are internationally recognised as being one of the most ecologically fascinating natural areas in the world. These forests con";
LA2[0]="tain an amazing array and diversity of flora and fauna. Stretching for over 500 kilometres along Tropical North Queensland’s coastline, these rainforests are the oldest continually surviving rainforests on earth and once covered t";
LA3[0]="he entire Australian continent. Inland form Cooktown is the savanna country in north east Queensland, lying inland from Cooktown in the north to Rockhampton in the south. It covers around 310,000 square kilometres and does not inc";
LA4[0]="lude the rainforest areas of the wet tropics and the central Mackay coast. Land use is dominated by pastoralism and includes major beef cattle areas in its southern parts. It is the most populous of our eight tropical savanna regi";
LA5[0]="ons with many towns including Townsville, Chillagoe, Charters Towers, and Emerald.    ";
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CL1[0]=" The North East Queensland region of the tropical savannas has high rainfall summers and drier winters and lies in a tropical climatic zone with its southern extent adjacent to the sub-tropics. Hot, summer days in January reach an ";
CL2[0]="average temperature of 33ºC to 36ºC. Rainfall is more intense in summer than winter and extensive falls can occur in association with the passage of tropical cyclones across the coast. Annual average totals diminish from north to ";
CL3[0]="south and with distance from the coast and range from 1200 mm to as low as 400 mm in the south-west. Drought conditions occur more frequently inland but the whole area has a moderate to high variability in rainfall. In July the av";
CL4[0]="erage overnight minimum temperatures are between 9ºC and 18ºC. There are only two seasons on Cape York Peninsula the 'wet' and the 'dry'. The wet is by far the most spectacular, from mid November thunderstorms herald the beginning";
CL5[0]=" of the monsoonal rain. The parched land is replenished and the once dry rivers and creeks again flow. It is from now until perhaps April or May that the roads will become impassable and the only way to visit the Cape York region ";
CL6[0]="is be by aircraft. This is also the cyclone season, with the right conditions they can form anywhere out to sea and cross the coast in varying intensity. At the end of the wet season the South East trade winds return drying the la";
CL7[0]="nd. The once parched land is now green & lush and the wild flowers flourish.";
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HI1[0]=" Cooktown wears its name with pride. It was the site of the first white 'settlement' in Australia when Captain James Cook, having accidentally struck the Great Barrier Reef off the coast north of Cape Tribulation, struggled up the ";
HI2[0]="coast and beached the H.M. Barque Endeavour on the shores of the Endeavour River. Cook and his crew were to stay on the river's edge from 17 June to 4 August, 1770: the greatest amount of time they were to spend at any one locatio";
HI3[0]="n in Australia. However, his journals of the voyage do not return the compliment:  '18 June 1770. I climbed one of the highest hills among those that overlooked the harbour, which afforded by no means a comfortable prospect; the l";
HI4[0]="owland near the river is wholly overrun with mangroves, among which the saltwater flows every tide; and the high land appeared everywhere stony and barren. In the mean time, Mr Banks had also taken a walk up the country and met wi";
HI5[0]="th the frames of several old Indian houses, and places where they had dressed shellfish. After Cook came the coastal explorers Phillip Parker King and Allan Cunningham who explored the area in 1819 and climbed and named Mount Cook";
HI6[0]=".  It wasn't until the discovery of gold on the Palmer River that any serious settlement was contemplated. Soon after the ship the Leichhardt arrived at Endeavour River with supplies and 96 people. Overnight the settlement of Cook";
HI7[0]="'s Town (as it was first called) grew up. This was a boom town. Within a few months there were over 500 tents and, by 1875, there were an incredible 65 hotels, a school, a fire brigade and two churches. The main street meandered o";
HI8[0]="n for nearly 3 km. The decline of the goldfields meant the decline of Cooktown. However, it had a sustained recovery when tin was found in the area. Fortunes turned again in 1907 when a cyclone nearly destroyed the town. It had a ";
HI9[0]="brief recovery during World War II but it wasn't until the current North Queensland tourist boom that it began to achieve a level of success comparable with the 1870s and 1880s.";