Karumba 2

Ok folks, get yourself a cup of tea and a sticky bun, this might take a while.

Day 2 - Morning

Early start at the Normanton Railway Station for our ride on the historic Gulflander train. This is a classic railway:It was supposed to go between Normanton to Cloncurry to service the proposed mines, but change of government and discovery of gold in Croydon saw the line diverted after the first 15 miles to go to Croydon instead. It is run by Queensland Rail and, apart from a weekly mail run that goes all the way and takes passengers as well, it takes tourists on an demand basis on short rides out to the 20 mile, Critters Camp. It seems that some of the tour operators call up and charter the train, then it gets scheduled for the run and takes any other passengers that can be found. The train today comprises two old Rail Motors that were converted to carriages, towed by a 1950s rail motor designed and built in Ipswich in 1950.

The rails are laid on steel sleepers just sitting on the ground, it’s the most frequently flooded railway line in Australia, and the line just seems to survive with a minimum of fuss. They slow down as they go past a flood marker that shows the current record of 22ft (6.6m) above the rails in 1974. Mind you, it’s a bit wavey and bumpy and has a speed limit of 20 mph (32kph for the children).

Gulflander train. Normanton, Qld

Just a nice relaxed way to spend a few hours. Normanton is a funny sort of place, it almost as if it doesn’t exist. There’s a few old building and a few run-down shops / cafes / petrol pumps, and a few houses. Normanton has a really good information centre in the old Burns Philp building. They have a good display about Bourke & Wills, who passed this way in 1861 on their ill-fated quest to be the first Europeans to trek the continent from south to north. Their last camp, 119, is 22 miles south of the town, so they claim it as their own, as they would.

Lunchtime

On the way back to Karumba, we kept a lookout for those Brolga, and I managed to get a few shots (while looking out myself for crocs and snakes). Should have brought Lauren’s lens! 

Brolgas in flight. Karumba, Qld

Had a nice lunch at the Sunset Tavern out at Karumba Point, and then went for a drive along the ‘beach’. It may have been a beach once but its currently just a rocky ledge because the beach got washed away in one of the many floods. When I say rocks, I mean a solid mass of sea-shells, obvious was once a bar or sea-bed at some stage.

Evening

A sunset cruise. There’s always one somewhere, this one was the Ferryman Cruise. One of the ubiquitous flat bottomed unsinkable barges we find all over the place. They took us down the Norman river giving us the chat about every landmark and all the town history. They feed a few kites by sticking fish out the front of the boat on a platform. Those birds, though very wary of the boat, came zooming in from time to time, they are so fast, you see a blur and a fish has gone. Further up the river they pull in and feed a pair of Jabiru, the male of which they hand reared from a chick.

A pair of Jabiru. Norman River. Karumba, Qld

 One of the landmarks is a huge storage / transfer facility. Apparently they mine zinc at Lawn Hill, 300km to the south west. They crush the ore and extract the zinc and make a slush out of it, which they then pump the 300km via pipeline to Karumba. In Karumba it is deliquified and pelletised and loaded in 5000 ton chunks onto a custom built ship, which takes it out into the roadstead in the Gulf proper, where t is transferred on a much bigger boat for shipment to Japan. The big boats might be 75,000 tons and each load takes a day to get from Karumba to the waiting vessel. They also ship cattle all over the place from Karumba, but they aren’t liquidized and pumped in, they are brought in by road-trains or just simply walked in.

I was most interested in the rusty wreck of the Katoora, a 327ton cargo ship built in 1927 and “blown from its moorings and stranded on the river bank” in 1982. Local legend is that it was well past its use by date and ‘may have been deliberately run aground during a king tide’. The Katoora’s claim to fame is that it was used to carry granite during the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

The Katoora. Norman River, Karumba, Qld

Further up river they were cursing an ‘imbecile’ who had roared in to the shore ina boat and scared the croc away. We then floated back up river past all the fishing boats (most of the prawn trawlers were out doing sea-trials, ready for the prawn season that starts August 1) and things and out into the Gulf a ways, where we watched the sunset gracefully in the west. During all of this we were plied with wine and snacks, so it was a very pleasant couple of hours.

I had smoked salmon and wine for dinner, seemed appropriate. I then had the best apple crumble ever, from the local (only) bakery and Judy had a similarly excellent custard tart. They’re so good we’re going back for more tomorrow: instead of buying a $190 Barramundi to freeze and take home, I reckon a few dozen of these cakes would be good!

Karumba, Qld

Normanton is 198km north of the roadhouse and we were on good road still, our first excitement was a 'roo that nearly took its last hop, and that was before we hit the outskirts of town. And then there was the emu, which we hadn’t seen for months. This one was on the other side of the road looking away out into the bush. We slowed and then slowed some more. True to form, at the last possible second it turned and took two skitterish emu steps right in front of us. Note: Two tonnes of caravan pulled by two tonnes of metal doesn’t actual stop all that quick even from 40kph. We missed the damn thing luckily but it’s a bit unnerving. At the 50km mark we hit our first taste of developmental road, just on the approach to a crest. Oh joy, no road and no view of oncoming traffic. The moment passed and we got used to the game and the new rules, which in practice are more like a game of chicken: last on on the road holds the tar. Unless the oncoming is a road-train, in which case you get the hell off and stay of until its gone. We get off. Didn’t have the pleasure of a road-train in either direction, which I’m pretty happy about.  Came across more 'roos and emus, and then a big flock of Brolga on the side of the road.

Finally made it into Normanton, checked out the Gulflander train schedule, and then pushed on toward Karumba. Lots and lots of Brolga, must get some shots on the way back. I thought we must have taken a wrong turn. I held up the glossy brochure of Karumba, and looked in vain for the lush green trees and cooling grass. Karumba has a reputation as being ‘the’ fishing town, inhabited mostly by a horde of Victorians that come here every year and stay in the same place for 6 months. It can be a bit off putting, so we’ll have to wait and see what sort of van park we find ourselves in. Mind you, it looks better than the other one at the Point.

Park seems ok enough, we are right next to the ablutions block, but under a tree with some shade from the afternoon sun and the pool looks inviting enough.  Booked a train ride for the morning and sunset cruise for tomorrow.

Just had to go to Karumba Point and stare out over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Had a wine in the wine garden of the Sunset Tavern, it seemed the thing to do.

Snap

Gulf of Carpentaria, Karumba, Qld

Bourke & Wills Roadhouse, Qld

At 00.30am o’clock we dragged ourselves up to Mt Isa Base Hospital. Judy had developed a sharp pain behind the knee during the evening and was now in excruciating pain with the slightest movement. We went in almost straight away and the doctor had a good old poke about and declared that it wasn’t a DVT or anything life threatening and suggested a shot of some wonder anti-inflammatory drug and an x-ray in the morning. One the drug started to work the pain eased and we snuck back to the van park at 3am.

Bit slow to start this morning, but got on the road about 10am, skipping the opportunity to get the x-ray, and headed east again, stopping at Cloncurry for some fuel and an ice-block. From Cloncurry we headed north into the great unknown. The map shows a ‘developmental’ road all the way to Normanton about 300km. A developmental road is a single lane of bitumen with varying amounts of dirt road on either side for passing. The plan is that when you see the other vehicle, you drive half off the road, slow down until they pass and then drive back on again.

We almost felt cheated, good dual lane bitumen all the way to the Bourke & Wills Roadhouse, which is where we decided to call it a day. The B&W Roadhouse isn’t much, just an old building with a few pumps and a ‘caravan park’ out the back. The park is a big dirt compound with about 50 or so ‘dongas’ for the itinerant workers and a a few sites with power for your van. No water mind you, it’s unfit for human consumption but feel free to shower in it. Anyhow, I didn’t care, we both slept all afternoon and retired early. 

Snaps.

Big bums. Bourke and Wills Roadhouse, Qld

 

Mt Isa, Qld

You can’t help it, it’s to do with the geography of Australia. Its 260km from Banka Banka to Barkly Homestead and it’s 260km from there to Camooweal and then 180km more to Isa. You are more or less forced to go the whole way and you end up in Mt Isa. We left Barkly at 7am and got here for lunch at 1.15pm having stopped for a cuppa at Camooweal. As a matter of interest, we covered our 40,000^th km towing the van today. Not bad considering we started in September 2009. On the way across, for the first few hours you are treated to a 360 degree view of a perfectly flat horizon, interrupted only by the occasional stand of gums standing in the mirage lakes in the distance.

This is our third time here and I still don’t like it. For one thing, the van park is a sardine tin with vans jammed in cheek by jowl. But then they start turning vans away at 2 o’clock and the place has heaps of other empty spaces. I happened to speak to the groundsman and he was adamant that it was ‘full’.

Anyhow, Isa is the only place for 100s of km around that has anything remotely resembling a shopping centre where one can stock up on food. As it was we went into Woolies, where the carpark is underneath the shops and through which a stream of raw sewage was flowing. The stench! Did the close the car park? No. Did they turn the fire hose on and flood the thing to dilute the stench at least? No. Mind you, I felt for the plumber who was getting his electric eel out as we left.