17 June 2024

Mother Nature turns it on as Cooktown uses festival to mark bounce back

| Lyndon Keane
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The 2024 Cooktown Discovery Festival grand parade participants were as diverse as they were engaging with the big crowd lining Charlotte Street on 15 June. Photo: Lyndon Keane.

From a beautiful performance by Hope Vale’s barefoot ballerinas and school band to open the event, to crowds lining Charlotte Street for the grand parade, the 2024 Cooktown Discovery Festival has been hailed as resounding show of the region’s resilience.

Just six months after the devastation Tropical Cyclone Jasper caused in the area, thousands of locals and visitors turned out in force to celebrate the ongoing recovery and Cooktown’s rich history.

Some grand parade entries were harder to miss than others. Photo: Lyndon Keane.

Cook Shire Council Mayor Robyn Holmes praised the organisation’s events team for putting on a fantastic event that was accompanied by perfect dry season weather.

“I think they’ve put in a massive effort, because you’ve got a variety of artists and a variety of stallholders here who aren’t all locals, and the acts here who are all very different,” she said.

“It takes a lot of effort to get them all to Cooktown.”

READ ALSO Rides rev up grand parade as competitors fight for muster glory

Mayor Holmes said part of this year’s festival was focused on celebrating the town and region’s turnaround following the December 2023 natural disaster.

“It’s definitely been a bounce back,” she said.

“We’ve had small bounce back events in Bloomfield and Rossville, so this one is incorporating some of the bounce back side of it for the Cooktown community.”

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services provided a popular way for grand parade spectators to beat the heat in Cooktown on Saturday. Photo: Lyndon Keane.

Victorian visitors Scott and Ellen Hempstead, who stopped in Cooktown for the festival en route to Panjinka, said they were stunned by the scope of the event.

“This has been just great so far,” Ms Hempstead said after the grand parade on 15 June.

“There’s so much to do and the community just seems like a wonderful place.”

Following Saturday’s grand parade, the Barrier Reef Community Childcare Centre was crowned the overall winner of the best float for a creative contribution involving miniature, homemade emergency services vehicles.

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