点评:Following on from our successful Cairns Outback bus and train trip in June and July 2022, which included stays in Georgetown, Karumba, Forsayth and Mount Surprise, my wife and I undertook a short stay in Cooktown. We travelled from Cairns on the Trans North bus service on Tuesday 5 July, stayed three nights at the Seaview Motel then returned to Cairns by Trans North Bus on Friday 8 July.
On Wednesday 6 July we enjoyed an energetic day’s touring, which included a lot of walking with visits to the Cooktown Museum, the Cooktown Botanic Gardens, and the Reconciliation Rocks Precinct.
The Cooktown Botanical Gardens were first proclaimed in 1878 and remained opened to the public until 1917 when funds to maintain the Gardens diminished and a forced closure resulted. It was not until 1986 that the Gardens enjoyed a renaissance with the Cook Shire Council commissioning a conservation report on the Gardens Reserve which ultimately resulted in the very beautiful Botanic Gardens we have today. The Gardens are located within the 62 hectare Gallop Botanic Reserve, situated 1.5km from the centre of Cooktown.
Our walk from the Museum to the Gardens, mostly along Walker Street, took 30 minutes and by the time we arrived we were in need of a drink, as the weather was very hot for walking. As it was lunchtime, we opted to have lunch at the café located in the very impressively constructed Nature’s Powerhouse Facility. The café is essentially a large open air deck with a roof over the top containing tables and chairs and it provides a nice atmosphere to enjoy lunch with lots of lush, green vegetation growing all around the deck providing added relief The menu choices are limited; however my wife and I did enjoy their cheese, bacon and tomato croissant as a light lunch meal and for drinks my wife had a vanilla milkshake and I had a very delicious iced coffee.
After lunch, before embarking on a tour of the Gardens, we had a look at some of the features in the Nature’s Powerhouse facility, namely a very comprehensive gift shop and the very impressive Vera Scarth Johnson Gallery. The Gallery features the botanic works of artist Vera Scarth-Johnson (1912-1999). Entranced by the beauty of the Endeavour River valley, Vera became passionate about the need to graphically record the flowering plants found in this unique region before they became endangered. This she achieved through her collection of completed works to the people of Cooktown she kindly donated in 1986. Prints of Joseph Banks Florilegium ( a collection of literary extracts) are also to be found in this Gallery. This is an absolute “must see” when visting the Botanic Gardens – it will totally captivate you as you admire the rare talent of Vera on display here. There is a ‘no photographs’ policy in the Gallery which needs to be observed and admission is free. One of the bonuses at the gift shop was the excellent example in a composted wire basket of a magnificent live Cooktown Orchid specimen; this purple flower being Queensland’s official floral emblem. It was as good a specimen of this flower as you would want to see anywhere. It was sitting on a bench next to a bookcase and definitely took pride of place competing with a stuffed snake specimen beside it.
The Botanic Gardens are divided into various plant themed sections for ease in viewing the trees and plants. There are around 20 individual plant sections including the Orientation Garden, the Vera Scarth Johnson Garden, First People’s Grove and the Banks and Solander Garden, to name just four. We decided to just do a leisurely walk along the very impressive walking paths and admire whatever caught our eyes at the time. We found this a nice way to enjoy the flora highlights on offer. It would have taken us too long to try to concentrate on all the plant sections in these extensive Gardens. Some highlights we noted included the Palmetum featuring beautiful, exotic palm trees, an incredible flowering Zamia Nut tree, Cycas media (collected by Banks and Solander in 1770); a delightful fan shaped Bismarck Palm and an excellent rich red flowering Crepe Ginger. There were more plants observed, of course. However these are just four to mention for this review.
Another area of consideration is the abundance of beautifully carved polished wood seating dotted throughout the Gardens to ease the weary walker. Two that stood out for us included the one constructed from Moreton Bay Ash and the seat paying tribute to Bert and Una Mason. A celebration plaque attached to this seat, donated by the Cooktown community in 2010 and located under a pair of paper bark trees growing near the gate leading to the walking track to Finch’s Bay reads simply “ Bert and Una Mason welcome you to this place we loved. Wait a while to enjoy the sunbirds, wallabies, little purple orchids, paperbark trees and green tree frogs". Bert Mason, who passed away in 2000, was a renowned geologist who with his wife Una in the early 1990’s used to live in Cooktown half of the year and down in Victoria the other half . He was an active member of the Endeavour Lions Club and a great supporter of the Cooktown State School, mentoring students.
Adjoining the Botanic Gardens is the Queen’s Park Cricket Oval, separated from the Gardens by a purposeful painted fence. A novel piece of signage at the entrance to the Gardens walk gave typical North Queensland warnings - regarding falling tree limbs, falling mangos, snakes and crocodiles. The warnings were next to a great map of the Gardens to make the task easier to find where everything is located. Very considerate.
We really enjoyed our short two hour visit to these wonderful Botanic Gardens. We are so glad we did not let the challenging walk to and from the Gardens make us change our minds. This visit was well worth the effort and we could have so easily given ourselves more time here, had that been available to us.
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翻译:继 2022 年 6 月和 2022 年 7 月成功的凯恩斯内陆巴士和火车旅行之后,我和我的妻子在库克敦短暂停留,其中包括在乔治城、卡伦巴、福赛斯和惊喜山的逗留。我们于 7 月 5 日星期二乘坐 Trans North 巴士从凯恩斯出发,在海景汽车旅馆住了三晚,然后于 7 月 8 日星期五乘坐 Trans North 巴士返回凯恩斯。
7 月 6 日星期三,我们度过了充满活力的一天,其中包括大量步行,参观了库克敦博物馆、库克敦植物园和 Reconciliation Rocks Precinct。
库克敦植物园于 1878 年首次宣布成立,并一直向公众开放,直到 1917 年维护花园的资金减少并被迫关闭。直到 1986 年,库克郡委员会委托一份关于花园保护区的保护报告,花园才得以复兴,最终形成了我们今天拥有的非常美丽的植物园。花园位于占地 62 公顷的 Gallop 植物保护区内,距离库克敦市中心 1.5 公里。
我们从博物馆步行到花园,主要是沿着沃克街,花了 30 分钟,当我们到达时,我们需要喝一杯,因为步行的天气非常炎热。因为是午餐时间,我们选择在位于非常令人印象深刻的自然发电厂设施内的咖啡馆吃午餐。咖啡厅本质上是一个大型露天甲板,顶部有屋顶,上面有桌椅,它提供了一个享受午餐的好氛围,甲板周围生长着许多郁郁葱葱的绿色植被,提供了更多的放松。菜单选择有限;然而,我和我的妻子确实喜欢他们的奶酪、培根和番茄羊角面包作为便餐午餐,我妻子喝了香草奶昔,我喝了非常美味的冰咖啡。
午餐后,在开始参观花园之前,我们参观了自然发电厂设施中的一些特色,即非常全面的礼品店和令人印象深刻的维拉斯卡斯约翰逊画廊。画廊以艺术家 Vera Scarth-Johnson(1912-1999)的植物作品为特色。被奋进河谷的美景所吸引,维拉开始热衷于以图形方式记录在这个独特地区发现的开花植物在濒临灭绝之前的必要性。她在 1986 年向库克敦人民捐赠了已完成的作品,从而实现了这一目标。在这个画廊中还可以找到 Joseph Banks Florilegium 的版画(文学摘录集)。这是参观植物园时绝对“必看”的地方——当您欣赏维拉在这里展示的罕见才华时,它会完全吸引您。画廊有一项“禁止拍照”的政策,需要遵守并且免费入场。礼品店的赠品之一是一个很好的例子,在一个漂亮的活库克敦兰花标本的堆肥铁丝篮里;这朵紫色的花是昆士兰州的官方花卉标志。这是你想在任何地方看到的最好的这种花的标本。它坐在书柜旁边的长凳上,与旁边的标本蛇标本竞争绝对是最引以为豪的地方。
植物园分为各种植物主题区,便于观赏树木和植物。大约有 20 个单独的植物区,包括定向花园、Vera Scarth Johnson 花园、First People's Grove 以及 Banks 和 Solander 花园,仅举四个例子。我们决定沿着令人印象深刻的步道悠闲地散步,欣赏当时吸引我们眼球的一切。我们发现这是享受所提供的植物群亮点的好方法。如果我们无法专注于这些广阔花园中的所有植物部分,那将花费我们太长时间。我们注意到的一些亮点包括以美丽、异国情调的棕榈树为特色的棕榈树、令人难以置信的开花 Zamia Nut 树、Cycas media(由 Banks 和 Solander 于 1770 年收集);令人愉悦的扇形俾斯麦棕榈和极佳的浓郁红色开花绉纱姜。当然,观察到的植物更多。然而,这些只是本评论中提到的四个。
另一个需要考虑的方面是整个花园中点缀着大量雕刻精美的抛光木座椅,以缓解疲惫的步行者。两个对我们来说很突出的包括用莫顿湾灰烬建造的那个和向伯特和乌娜·梅森致敬的座位。这个座位上附有一块庆祝牌匾,由库克镇社区于 2010 年捐赠,位于通往通往芬奇湾步道的大门附近的一对纸树皮树下,上面简单地写着:“伯特和乌娜·梅森欢迎您来到我们喜爱的地方.稍等片刻欣赏太阳鸟、小袋鼠、小紫兰花, 白千层树和绿树蛙”。伯特·梅森 (Bert Mason) 于 2000 年去世,他是一位著名的地质学家,在 1990 年代初期,他和妻子 Una 曾半年住在库克敦,另一半住在维多利亚州。他是一位Endeavour Lions Club 的活跃成员,也是 Cooktown 州立学校的大力支持者,指导学生。
毗邻植物园的是 Queen’s Park Cricket Oval,与植物园之间有一道特意涂漆的围栏隔开。花园步道入口处的一块新颖标牌给出了典型的北昆士兰警告——关于倒下的树枝、倒下的芒果、蛇和鳄鱼。这些警告紧挨着一张精美的花园地图,使任务更容易找到所有东西所在的位置。很体贴。
我们真的很享受对这些美丽的植物园的短短两个小时的参观。我们很高兴我们没有让往返花园的挑战性步行让我们改变主意。这次访问非常值得付出努力,如果我们有时间的话,我们本可以很容易地给自己更多的时间。
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