Climate
Cooktown is well inside the tropics, experiences the seasonal monsoon in summer, and in general has warm and dry winters. There are a couple of weeks a year in winter when the weather can get cooler and rain is more common, usually around the beginning of July. The locals will tell you that Cooktown has a couple of weeks of winter a year.
Geography
The town itself is on the banks of the Endevour River estuary, although only a few kilometres overland from the ocean.
There is an amazing natural environment that surrounds the area. From the Great Barrier Reef to the rainforests of the World Heritage Wet Tropics and the savanah's of Cape York. Cooktown is a great base to explore this these renowned areas.
History
The first European to visit Cooktown was in 1770 when Captain Cook holed his ship on a reef just south of Cooktown and had to beach his ship at the mouth of the Endeavour River to undertake repairs. He spent 48 days here. Over 100 years later, Cooktown became one of the main gateways into Australia with the gold rush to the Palmer River. Grand permanent buildings were established, and the population boomed. A railway was even constructed from Cooktown to the goldfields.
With the passing of the goldrush days, and a decline in shipping, Cooktown went into decline. The town was frequently cut off by flooding in the wet, and the gravel road to Cooktown was washed out frequently. Cooktown became a victim of its isolation.
The visit of the Queen Elizabeth II to Cooktown in 1970 still rates highly in the history of the town.
The sealed road made it to Cooktown in the 1990s, bringing with it a small resurgence in the fortunes of the town, with the arrival of tourism. The town's population has never recovered to the level of the goldrush days, but today is slowly increasing.
The place is called Gungardie in the language of the Guugu Yimithirr, and has had a continuous occupation by indigenous Australians stretching back thousands of years.