KARUMBA

Dear all,

Karumba is located at the mouth of the Norman River in the Gulf of Carpentaria and is a popular base for serious fishermen and women. The town is just one street with a small supermarket, a butcher, a bakery and a chemist. Oh - and, of course, a pub. It is pretty rough up here but we are at a place called Karumba Point which is where most of the tourists stay. There is a newly established hotel on the point where the grass is lovely and green and the gardens overlook the Gulf of Carpentaria where lots gather each afternoon to watch the beautiful sunsets.



The town is the centre for the Gulf's huge prawn and barramundi industries. The prawns are no longer processed here as this is now all handled by mother ships out in the Gulf and they are exported directly from the ships. The Barrumundi Centre here is the largest hatchery in the world.


The Century zinc mine is at Lawn Hill about 400 kms east of Karumba and the zinc slurry is sent to Karumba and loaded onto huge barges which take the slurry out into the Gulf 45 kms to be loaded onto ships and sent overseas to the UK, Europe and Japan.


During the 1930's, the town was a refuelling depot for the seaplanes which stopped here on their way from Sydney to England.

We have found the golf club, also known as the recreation club, which is managed by Charlie who comes here from Canberra for the winter months and lives in his combi-van out the back. He's a wiry old fellow who also doubles as the entertainment around town (he plays guitar and sings bush ballads). He says he makes more money in the winter months up here that when at home. He also reckons he doesn't have any arguments with his wife for 3 months .... she stays in Canberra. The club opens at 3pm each day (see sign on door). The menu looks good too!




Saltwater crocs inhabit the river here so we can't take a swim, but the water is a beautiful aqua with the sand white.

We visited the Barramundi Centre today which was really interesting - I had no idea that they restock the rivers and the Gulf of Carpentaria with Barramundi fingerlings due to the commercial fishing nearly wiping them out up here. They release over a million fingerlings in various spots around the Gulf and rivers each year. The grunter (fish) is also in low numbers due to the growing number of fishermen each year in the Gulf - not only commercial, but for sport as well.
We are really ready to leave here now .... we've seen it all. Tomorrow night there will be a fish bbq here at the caravan park - we'll see if we can get any fish (one has to fight off the older patrons to get near anything that might be free!!)
We'll sign off with this photo of Christmas in July - Outback Style. Merry Christmas in July to you all. xxxx

STILL IN NORMANTON

Dear all,

30 degrees - petrol 142.9.

Leaving tomorrow morning for Karumba (see map, courtesy of our good friend, Ron Angove) ... looking forward to seeing the sea again and having fresh seafood.

We've been at Normanton now for 7 days and have seen all there is to see. We've said it before, this is a very nice town, but very, very basic.

Yesterday we took off into the bush to see the wetlands and birdlife. I'm finding it very difficult to get photos of the Brolgas, but the Jabirus were accommodating! We've had our spa in the artesian bore water, followed by a quick - very quick - dip in the pool here in the caravan park. It was absolutely freezing, but I got a couple of laps in which is about the only excercise, apart from a bit of walking, we've had since we left!



Visited the old Normanton gaol which was still in use in 1991 - goodness me, what hell that would have been. There is a hole in the wall with a small metal slide over it which was used by the wardens to shoot through into the excercise yard if there was any trouble. The wall on the inside of the gaol where the bullets hit at the end of the excercise yard is covered in chips out of the wall.









The replica crocodile and the Purple Pub are the most photographed attractions in town, but I thought The Central looked pretty good. This is where the aboriginals go and you can see I stood well back to take the photo!



So, it's over and out from us at Normanton. We'll return to our Blog when we get settled in Karumba tomorrow (Monday).
Missing Mum.
xx

NORMANTON

Hello from us!

Petrol 145.9 - 30 degrees - $50 for a case of beer - $26 for a bottle of white wine.

This is a pretty town with a big river, the Norman, which is full of crocodiles and barramundi. Even though the river is full, the town is dry and dusty. The town was cut off during the January floods for 10 weeks and as the water didn't subside for such a long time, it killed all the savanah grasses and most of the trees in the lower flat plains surrounding the town. Even the mangroves in the river are dead. The most northerly camp of Burke & Wills is indicated by a monument outside the town on the Savannah Way heading toward Burketown. I am told that Burke and Wills carved their mark (a shield and the letter B) into 16 trees at this camp during their expedition north to the Gulf. We haven't been there yet but will visit tomorrow (Friday).


In the 50's and, until only recently, there were crocodile hunters in the Gulf and one of the croc hunters, a lady (well - female anyway), shot a crocodile here that was 28 feet long! Here is a photo of the replica. We went on a croc cruise the night before last but we only saw one ... you will have to double click on this to be able to see it through the mangroves. The tour guide saw a big one but it fled to the water before we could reach it. The marks in the mud were proof enough though - it is huge - 22 feet.









Just over the bridge here are wetlands full of birds and waterlilies. There are brolgas, sea eagles (we're only 70 kms from the Gulf of Carpentaria), cranes, jabirus and other birdlife there. I wanted to get closer to it but the crocodiles are there as well! They feed on the birds and wallabies that come there.

Normanton was a service town for the goldfields at Croydon, about 150kms east of here. The train, the Gulflander, was used to take passengers and goods to and from Croydon in those days. Now the Gulflander is a tourist train which travels the same tracks used in the 1880's. We did the trip yesterday and we rocked and rolled for 5 hours to get there. Once there, we looked at the old Court House, the gaol and police station, then went to the pub. We had to wait until 3:45pm to get the coach back to Normanton. There is a lot of history in Croydon but unfortunately no-one told us that we needed a car. The train trip was really good though and the commentary by the train driver was excellent. There were lots of kangaroos along the line and waterholes with amazing birdlife. The train was also used to transfer mail to outlying properties and yesterday we did just that to a cattle-station which is 40 kms from the train line; they have a post box beside the line. Alongside the tracks were timber cutters' camps and you can see evidence of their camps all along the way. Gee - they would have lived rough.


The old Burns Philp & Co building was built to trade stores and sell goods to the people who flocked to the area searching for gold ... it ceased trading in 1914 when the gold ran out.


There are 3 pubs in town - the Central, the Albion, and the Purple Pub. The Albion was moved from Croydon to Normanton after the gold ran out. It is an interesting little place and full of history. During the floods this year in January, they were fishing off the back verhandah for barramundi, and the crocodiles were fishing out there as well! All of the outback pubs we have visited since leaving home have backpackers working behind the bars. Each have told us that they work in the pubs out here because there's nothing to spend their money on, so they save heaps before doing the Great Barrier Reef or other such places.

Back in it's hey-day during the gold rush, Normanton was a big town. The Normanton Railway Station was constructed in 1889 and is still in fabulous condition. It is a living and working museum and well worth our visit.


"Free camping" seems the go for all the older caravanners - we haven't tried that yet. I might be roughing it but this is about as rough as I'm going - not to have television and electricity and my microwave is not on!

These spiders nests are everywhere out here. Some are huge but I'm not going anywhere near the big ones.

We were meant to leave here tomorrow (Friday) but the Karumba Caravan Park is full and we can't get in until Monday, so it'll be more of Normanton for the next 3 days. We should be classed as locals by then!

Yeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaa!
xx

MT ISA/CLONCURRY/BURKE&WILLS/NORMANTON

Dear all,

2/7/09
Awning fixed!!

Left Mt Isa for the short (170 kms) trip to Cloncurry. Lots of soaring eagles again and many caravans on the road. Petrol is now 134.9 and temperature today is 30 degrees.

The caravan park is really nice. It is quite green and, although on the highway, we don't get any noise from the road-trains (I might regret saying that when sleeping tonight!)

3/7/09
Road-trains not a problem. Slept well. Cold night.

Cloncurry was originally founded by a grazier called Ernest Henry who found copper in the area and named his mine Great Australia, but when the district was surveyed in 1876, it was called Cloncurry after the Cloncurry River, which Burke of Burke & Wills fame, had named after his cousin, Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry from Ireland. The Ernest Henry mine is still here and being worked today. Cloncurry is where the first Qantas flight landed from Charleville. The original hanger is still in use today as an aerodrome with the words "Queensland and Northern Territory Air Services" painted across the entrance. It has changed in appearance somewhat but the words are still there.



The cemeteries in Cloncurry show some of it's history in that there are separate ones for the Chinese miners of the day and the Afghan camel train drivers. Unfortunately, these are long gone and there are only historical signs indicating where they once were. There is only 1 headstone left in the Afghan cemetery and this is where a Mohammedan priest was buried. All the Afghan graves faced towards Mecca and date back to the mid-1880's. Dame Mary Gilmore and her husband are also buried in the Cloncurry cemetery.

The Chinaman Creek Dam is a pretty spot but has been closed to recreational use due to a large saltwater crocodile that has been seen in the area. We stayed there for ages but didn't see anything. I'm starting to think they are using these signs to entice tourists like us to the area!

We are starting to see much more aboriginal history the more north we travel. Mt Isa seems to have a problem, but as we get closer to the Northern Territory, the more cultural they are.


4/7/09
Left Cloncurry for the 180km trip to Burke & Wills Roadhouse. Road good and arrived at 1pm. The road from Cloncurry to Normanton to Karumba is called the Matilda Highway and is the route taken by Burke, Wills and King in their effort to get from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Oh my gosh - this is a real roadhouse! I really don't know what I expected, but all it is is a big service station in the middle of nowhere. There used to be a camel called Lulu that roamed around the roadhouse and most of the stickers and postcards show her in the pictures. No-one seems to know what happened to Lulu - I was afraid to ask! The "caravan park" is at the back in the scrub with power poles and taps for water. The amenities block is huge but only one light bulb in the middle of the ceiling. The roadhouse is licenced so, after setting up, off we went to the bar. The bar is literally that - a bench - but surprisingly, out to the side, was a really nice verandah with timber tables and comfy chairs. The bar, roadhouse, and "caravan park" is run by backpackers from Scotland, Ireland and Germany. The owner apparently lives far, far away and is making a lot of money out of the roadhouse but doesn't put much back in.



Because the roadhouse is so far away from anywhere, they can pretty-well do what they like and all the young musterers who work in bush camps all week for the companies that own the stations, come to the roadhouse on Saturday, party all night (no police out here to enforce closing time) then it's back to work on Sunday night out in the bush. We spoke with many of them and they are gorgeous, polite, hardworking young men. I awoke around 3 in the morning and the music was blaring.

We had breakfast at the roadhouse - $12 for bacon and eggs, $12 for savoury mince on toast, $8 for eggs on toast. Ken went for $2.50 raisin toast (2 slices) and I went for $2 toast with vegemite. Even though it is so remote and so rough, we found it - well, the people - interesting and the place a must to see.

On the road again ...................

5/7/09
The road from Burke&Wills Roadhouse to Normanton is dreadful. We had to get right off the single laned highway each time a roadtrain was heading for us. It took at least 3 mins for the red dust to clear each time before we could get back onto the bitumen. There was a lot of road-kill - all kangaroos. However, it's quite lovely to see the scenery change as we move north. Also, we are now starting to see brolgas by the side of the road among the spinifex and the ground covered in ant hills, some taller than me.


Arrived Normanton at 1pm. The caravan park is really nice, although they do cram you in. We are fortunate in that our site is at the end of the road and we look out onto the park Managers backyard which is covered in green grass and dark pink bougainvilleas. Tomorrow we'll explore!

Lots of love,
Frances and Ken xox

HUGHENDEN/RICHMOND/JULIA CREEK

27/6/09
Left Hughenden nice and early for our trip to the next stop, Julia Creek. The road was dreadful and more like a one-lane road which we had to get off into the scrub when a road-train came through. It was really bad so it took a while to get to Richmond. Two highlights: First were eagles in their hundreds soaring and diving all the way to Richmond. The second was Richmond itself, which is another dinosaur stop but a really pretty little town. The gardens were beautiful and it looked much more prosperous than Hughenden - I think Richmond gets more tourists. The country is very, very dry and uninteresting other than the eagles swooping all around. Another fossil museum - bought fresh bread from the bakery and had lunch.






Arrived Julia Creek 3pm (250kms), set up then down to the main street (only 2 streets in Julia Creek) had a beer in the 103 yr old pub and met "Bundy" and "Menace". Bundy is a guy who, as a child, moved to Julia Creek with his mum and dad in the mid-50's. His dad was a drover and Bundy is a musterer. He had the bluest eyes I've ever seen and he stood about 5'2" tall with an old akubra hat on top. We shook hands to say goodbye and his hands were like sandpaper. He told me (Frances that is) that "you tickle my fancy". Ha - I can pick them!! Hey, Sue, (my sister), Bundy is Bobby's twin. For everyone else, Bobby is a family friend from Crookwell near Goulburn, and he is a really lovely sheep grazier and is "the spit" of Bundy! "Menace" is a horse breaker and has been all his life. My gosh - you could write a book or, even better, do a movie on the characters out here.


We were going to have dinner in the pub but the lights failed so we went to the other pub (only 2 in town - 1 for each street!) had the best lamb cutlets I've had apart from my own, won $80 on the pokies then home to sleep.

The caravan park was just an open paddock with 2 dogs and a block of porta-loos which had showers as well as toilets. However, only 2 cubicles were open out of about 12. We got up at 6am so that we could be first in - me in one, Ken in the other. It's a case of the quick and the dead!!

Left Julia Creek at 8:30 am for Cloncurry and Mt Isa (280 kms). Again country not interesting but had a good trip. Didn't stop at Cloncurry as we will go back there after our awning is fixed in Isa. Between Cloncurry and Mt Isa is Burke and Wills country where they camped on their way to trek the south to the north. We stopped at the Corella River and found a memorial to a camp of Burke & Wills in 1861 (see photo). This would have been a wonderful place to camp as there is a running river over stones and not too deep with lots of shady gums and a great place for them to rest.

Drove straight through Cloncurry as we will be going back (don't know why from what we could see), on to Mt Isa.

Arrived at the Copper Mine Caravan Park (the lady at the desk should change her job - nasty piece!!) We have an ensuite site here which is good but gosh, the park is a dust bowl. Nothing can be done, of course, about the lack of rain and the caravan park is full of shady trees but the ground is just dirt and dust. There are a lot of permanents in this park - they work in the mine and each night just when it's time for sleep, the motorbikes and cars start up for the guys/girls to take off for their shift at the mines.


Big place! Big mine! Mt Isa is a huge industrial town for the mine. The mine is 80yrs old and doesn't look like closing. It mines copper, zinc, silver and lead. We did a surface tour of the mine for 3 hours which was really interesting but it's 9:30pm at night so I won't go into it here. Ken is keeping the handwritten diary up to speed so I'll leave the technical stuff to him. The tour made us understand what the mine is all about rather than being just a huge conglomeration of structures. The amount of metals like copper, silver, lead and zinc runs into the billions of dollars and there is no end to the mine.

This can't be a healthy place. There are tall stacks which belch out smoke and the guides say that the air is monitored by the EPA, but hey, we just got home at 9pm and there's a lot more coming out than during the day. 4 days in Mt Isa is enough in my book!


The town is a service town for the mine. If the mine didn't exist, there would be no town. There are a lot of indigenous people here and it's good to see a lot of them work in the mines. They make a lot of money.



It has been very hot out here - today it was 32 degrees and in the caravan it was 35 degrees. There is a pool in the caravan park but it is full of dirt, not water!

Last night we had a bbq of lamb chops, eggplant, potato watched tv. Tonight, being our last night in Mt Isa, we went to the Buffs Club (Buffalo Club) for dinner.

We were told when doing the Mine Tour, that there would be explosions at the mine at 8pm tonight. We didn't think anymore of it, until tonight, while at the Buffalo club, we felt the earth move. I looked at Ken, he looked at me, and we slowly walked from the club. We were sure it was a minor earthquake, but nobody else was moving. It turned out that it was the mine. When we got back to the caravan park, the people in a combi-van behind us, said that they didn't feel it, but they heard it. David and Margaret are in their late 70's and are from Young in NSW. They are the salt of the earth type people and are travelling the inner Qld country out to the coast and back to Young.

We leave here tomorrow morning after having our awning fixed. On to Cluncurry for an overnight stay then north to Burke and Wills Roadhouse.

Keep watching!