Day 161 - Wednesday 7 June - Ay Karumba

Day 161

Wednesday

7 June 2017 – Finished the book Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell. This was a fabulous read. A great story of two characters entwined but told in two time periods, 1920 and 1995. A tragic romantic mystery and untold story of a grandmother living on Gurnsey, to be solved by a granddaughter living in Soho.

Mount Isa – Cloncurry – Normanton – Karumba

I’d set the alarm for 7am so that we could make an early start seeing we had a fair drive ahead. We weren’t thrilled when it did go off, but got out and underway, making good time and heading out of the park by 8.10am.

We made our way through Mount Isa and then continued along the Barkly Highway to the town of Cloncurry, the friendliest town in Queensland according to a giant billboard on the highway. We stopped here for fuel and bread rolls but didn’t bother to take a look around, continuing on just after 10am.

We had to backtrack about 5km before taking the Burke Development Road or Matilda HWY, north, the GPS letting us know we followed this road for a further 444km to make our destination.  I passed the time throwing the hand weights around and reading the travel brochures to Paul. In doing so, we decided we would check out Normanton as there was a free camp and it sounded like the town was interesting.

The further north we travelled the worse the road became and in patches it was just one lane with red gravel drop offs to each side. We were fortunate most of the time when trucks came at us from the opposite direction as we managed to time it when the road was two-lanes. However, our luck didn’t last for the whole trip and as we rounded a bend doing 100km a truck came at us and it just happened there a large road kill on our side too. Paul slowed the best he could before taking the van off road and taking out a white road edge marker. Thankfully it was the spring-loaded type.

We re-entered the road and continued on our journey, shaking our heads at the close call. Further down the road we did a quick stop to check everything over and straighten the bike, all ok phew.

We made it to Normanton for 2pm and pulled in to the info centre to enquire about the free camp, unfortunately it was full, so we decided we wouldn’t stay in the town. Instead we filled up with fuel and then stopped to check out the MASSIVE replica croc that was shot by Krystina Pawlowski in 1957 on the banks of the Norman River. It is the largest Salty to be captured anywhere in the world and at 8.63m in length it is longer than our van. You wouldn’t stand a chance coming face to face with it.

Once we had taken our photos, we made our way to Karumba, a seaside town on the Gulf of Carpentaria and known for its good fishing. We found the Gulf caravan park to call home for two nights and set up home before having a mid afternoon lunch.

We hopped in the car and drove around to the point, passing brolga along the way. I made Paul stop so I could take some photos of the long, sleek, grey bird with the red head.

Once at the point, we walked along the esplanade looking out over the waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria. We were unsure if the tide was coming or going but there were many sand bars exposed and mangroves.

We walked the main street to the boat ramp, watching whistling kite fly about along the beach. I took some photos of the birds as they landed near the water’s edge and then we made our way back towards the car.

As the sun began to drop away, we sat at the pub and enjoyed a drink and the tranquillity of the sleepy little town. When we finished I walked out on the shore to take some more photos, the sun turning everything yellow. We then returned to the town centre and stopped to check out the boat ramp leading to the Norman River.

Once back at the park, I started dinner and then it was quiet time, reading and sorting photos before making it to bed for a well-earned rest.