THE BACK OF BEYOND : Time has a different quality in Australia’s tropical north, and Cooktown, site of the first European settlement, is no exception. : The ghosts of this old town tread lightly, but one casn still find their footprints.

Many towns in the world know the date of their founding.

Cooktown knows the sound of its beginning--the sound of oak planks splintering on coral reef. That fearful sound was heard on the evening of June 11, 1770, when the Endeavour grounded on the Great Barrier Reef roughly 27 miles south of here.

The Royal Navy bark, all 369 tons of it, was stuck fast, and the commander, Capt. James Cook, ordered 50 tons of stores and equipment jettisoned, including six cannons.

But that was not enough to free the Endeavour. Not until high tide, when the ship’s anchors were deployed in longboats, was the ship able to slip off the coral outcropping that had held it.

With the gaping hole in its hull plugged with wool and canvas, the Endeavour limped north and, in a stroke of luck, came upon a wide river mouth that offered a protected anchorage. Here, at the foot of a grassy hill, Cook beached the Endeavour.

For the next seven weeks the camp they established on shore was home to the ship’s crew while they worked to repair the hull. Finally all was ready, and Cook climbed the hill, telescope in hand, to search for a way out of the maze of reefs.

Today a steep road, part paved and part red dirt, winds its way up Grassy Hill. The climb is not a strenuous one and, considering the panorama that awaits, is well worth the effort.

The red-capped lighthouse was not there in Cook’s day, of course, and there were fewer eucalyptus trees on the slopes back then, but the view is every bit as spectacular as it was in 1770.

Face east on a clear day, and the glistening Coral Sea stretches before you, offering a glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef.

Turn around and a sea of green, not blue, surrounds you. The forest-clad hills of Queensland’s tropical north roll out as far as one can see.

At the foot of the hill is the Endeavour River, twisting and turning lazily through the mangrove swamps along its banks. On the southern shore, at the exact bend in the river where Cook made his camp, lies the town that later was named after him.

Grassy Hill is not the only spot where the past comes to life. The ghosts of this old river mouth town tread lightly, but we can still find their footprints.

Walk down Charlotte Street, for instance, and imagine the tent city that sprang up here in the days of the great Palmer River gold rush of the 1870s, when Cooktown was the starting point on notorious Palmer Track. Or stroll out beyond Chinaman Creek to the cemetery.

You have three ways to get to Cooktown--by road, by air and by sea. The coast road requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle and may be impassable in the rainy season. The same applies to the longer inland route, but a bus makes this trek every other day. Air Queensland offers a flight from Cairns, while the twin-hulled Quicksilver makes the voyage from Port Douglas to Cooktown between trips to the outer barrier reef.

Once here, it is best to slip quickly into the Cooktown spirit. That means relax. Time has a different quality in Australia’s tropical north, and Cooktown is no exception.

For newcomers, perhaps the best spot to get a sense of the town is on Charlotte Street at the foot of Green Street. There outside the post office is the message tree. Affixed to its trunk are notices of all kinds. A brief sampling:

“A reward of $500 will be paid for the first information leading to the conviction of any person or persons involved in either shooting cattle bearing the brands D2, JC, V37 and MX9, or removing part or the whole of any such marked carcasses.”

“Puppies for sale. Mother pure-bred greyhound, ex-racer; father Alsatian-bull terrier cross. Puppies in very good condition. Father excellent pig dog.”

“5-inch gold and tin dredge with jigs on it. Going Concern. $1,500.”

Cattle rustling, pig hunting and gold dredging. That’s the sort of place this is. No wonder almost every vehicle here seems to be a battered, mud-spattered pickup with a dog or two in the back.

From the message tree, choose a direction. One way leads past the town’s handful of hotels, pubs and stores to the cemetery with its Chinese shrine and the graves of pioneering seafarers, gold miners and explorers. Another leads uphill to the museum on Helen Street. A third goes to the wharf, or Cook’s Landing, and that seems the appropriate place to start.

Aboriginal Land

Along the south bank of the Endeavour--the far shore is aboriginal land--the fishing is fine but swimming is discouraged. “Warning--Estuarine crocodiles inhabit this river system” reads a large sign prominently displayed on the river bank.

In the early mornings or at twilight, when activity on the fishing boats and visiting yachts has died down, you can stand on the bank and almost be certain of seeing a crocodile or two rippling the water’s surface.

Before reaching Cook’s Landing you come to a riverside park dominated by a tall column erected in memory of Cook, “who landed here June 17, 1770.” Nearby, at the water’s edge, is a stone obelisk marking where the Endeavour was beached.

For 103 years after Cook and his men left, the place slumbered. Then in September, 1873, gold was discovered inland on the Palmer River. The rush was on and, almost overnight, Cooktown turned from a tent city to a riotous gold-mining port with a population of more than 30,000, many of them Chinese.

Then, almost as quickly as it had boomed, Cooktown sank back into obscurity.

As the gold fields waned, so did the town. There was no road from the south, air travel was a thing of the future, and fewer ships called. People began to leave. The cyclone of 1907 destroyed much of the town. The fire of 1919 destroyed a bit more. Cooktown was well on its way to becoming a ghost town. The cyclone of 1949 was almost the final blow.

But Cooktown survived to become a small, friendly town, full of interest and with a legitimate claim to being the site of the first European settlement in Australia. After all, Cook and his men did live here for 48 days.

Australia is celebrating its 200th birthday this year, but Cooktown’s bicentennial was in 1970.

Exactly 199 years after Cook’s men heaved the six cannons overboard to help refloat the Endeavour, one of the guns again broke the surface of the Coral Sea.

Salvaged in 1969 after an extensive search and restored to its original condition, the cannon has pride of place in the James Cook Historical Museum, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1970, 200 years after the English navigator’s unplanned visit.

There you see a portion of the trunk of the tree to which the Endeavour was moored in 1770. Even a piece of the Endeavour’s sternpost on display, donated by the Newport, R.I., Historical Society. Other displays detail the lives of Cook and the Endeavour’s scientist, Joseph Banks.

There is even a photograph of an Apollo spaceship in orbit autographed by its crew members, James B. Irwin, David R. Scott and Alfred M. Worden Jr. Their inscription reads: “To the James Cook Historical Museum from the crew of the Apollo 13 ‘Endeavour’ with kindest regards. August 2, 1971.”

One wonders what Cook would make of that. With his love of adventure and discovery, he would probably envy the astronauts their voyage.

There is another item of interest. It was here, not at Botany Bay, that Cook and his men came into close contact with a hitherto unknown animal.

“Something less than a greyhound, it was of mouse colour, very slender made and swift of foot,” Cook wrote in his journal.

“It is different from any European and indeed any animal I have heard or read of,” Banks wrote. “The largest we shot weighed 84 pounds.”

What was this beast? The aborigines provided the name and Banks made it part of the English language. It, he said, “was called by the natives kangooroo .”

Additional information on Australia can be found in Lucy Izon’s Youth Beat column on Page 16.