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!