No tags yet.
We hadn't unhitched the night before so it didn't take too long to pack up and leave the park. Before leaving Croydon we drove around a little bit so that I could take photos. Croydon is one of the prettier towns in outback Queensland with an historic hotel and two streets lined with historic buildings, there is also a lovely lake not too far out of town which we visited last time so didn't worry about this time.
We drove along one of the straightest roads we have been on this trip and it seemed to go on forever but it wasn't that long until we arrived at Normanton and then drove the last 70kms onto Karumba. We found the caravan park we were looking for and went into the motel to book for four nights with an option of five. When we get settled today Robb will try to organise a fishing charter so that we know whether or not we need to extend our time. We were given the spot next to the one we had last time we were here and that suited us fine, we have a lovely view of the river and we are close to the amenities and the hotel. It doesn't take us long to set up and then I prepared lunch, after lunch we drove to the supermarket in town to pick up a few items and then onto the Information Centre to pick up brochures on charters in the area and other attractions so that we can plan our time here. When we returned to the van Robb started to call the charter companies and I followed up with friends of ours who are also staying in Karumba at the moment. Robb didn't have any luck with the charters but we did organise to have dinner tonight with our friends at the hotel where we are staying. It is a beautiful day so we spent the afternoon outside until it was time to get ready to go out. We met our friends at 5.30pm and sat in the outside bar because they had a dog with them, it was a great catch up and we all had the surf and turf that was on special for dinner and we were surprised at the quality of the meal. We left our friends around 7.30pm, they were leaving the next day and like to get an early start and there was to be an eclipse that night and blood moon and I was hoping to catch the event. Robb and I sat outside until about 9.30 watching the eclipse, I tried to take photos but it was impossible to get the eclipse, each photo just showed a full moon. I ended up going inside to collect my old camera and I had a bit more luck with that but by this time I had missed the eclipse but did manage to get some photos of the blood moon. I went to bed when we went inside as this is fairly late for me.
We had our coffee at home this morning while I tried to book the 11.00am tour at the Barramundi Discovery Centre, as it turned out they don't take phone bookings but they assured me we would be able to get in. We still had one and a half hours to go so I started to look through the local brochures I had picked up yesterday to see what attractions there were for us to visit tomorrow. I came across a trip on the Gulflander train between Normanton and Critters Camp, the total time for the tour was two hours and that suited us so I phoned and booked two tickets on this trip, we will go into Normanton earlier and have a good look around as we didn't do that last time and there are a few things to see. We finished our coffee and then drove to the pharmacy to put our prescriptions in and called next door to the supermarket to pick up milk and water. We drove onto the Barramundi Discovery Centre from here to join the 11.00am tour. We had taken this tour when we were here last time, then it was over the road in an old shed and at the time they were building this new centre which is very impressive and it also houses the Information Centre. We paid our admittance and then walked around to the tour start point, there was only us and one other couple for the tour so there was lots of time to ask questions of the guide. It is an informative tour and you get to feed the Barramundi which is very exciting because they are not gentle when they take the food from you. From here we drove back to the pharmacy to pick up our medication and then went in search of wine which we found at the bottle shop of the hotel we are staying behind. We didn't do much after lunch but caught up on a few jobs we wanted to do. I took a few photos of the beautiful sunset tonight, that was worth catching.
We are driving into Normanton today to take a tour on the Gulflander a train that runs between Normanton and Croydon, if you take this trip you stay overnight in Croydon and then return to Normanton the next day, or vice versa. We are taking a two hour tour that runs between Normanton and Critters Camp which I think if I remember rightly is 16 miles away, so one hour to the camp and then one hour back. We gave ourselves plenty of time to have a look around Normanton first as the last time we were in the area we didn't do that and all we had seen was the main road on the way through. Normanton has an interesting history with a few historic buildings most of which are still being used except for the old gaol which is in quite bad repair We visited with Krys the big crocodile an 8.63mt replica of the biggest crocodile captured in Australia, this is in a park on the main street and of course we took the obligatory photo of each of us with our heads in it's mouth. Our next stop was the purple pub for a beer, it is obvious why it has this name and if you haven't been inside just letting you know it is purple inside too. We sat out on the front deck and watched life go by in town before moving down to the bakery to grab something quick for lunch because the tour starts at 1.00pm and finishes at 3.00pm.
We drove down to the station with plenty of time to spare, I am manic about not being late, so we had a look around this beautiful station while we waited to board the train. The gardens around the station are magnificent and we found out on the trip that one of the guards on the train is responsible for the maintenance. The Gulflander is an old train servicing the gulf country for 130 years, originally it was supposed to go as far as Cloncurry but because of changes in the goldfields it didn't get any further than Croydon. There are trains running from Cloncurry to the East Coast and it was to meet up with this line but now you can catch a train to Croydon, a bus to Cloncurry and then another train to the east coast, I think to both Townsville and Brisbane. The whistle goes for us to board the train, we had been allocated seats and they weren't hard to find, I took the window seat to take photos but there was a spare seat behind us so Robb moved into that so he could also have a window seat. The landscape of the area changes quite a bit, they have had a few floods through here and there is a marker with levels for the various floods the most amazing being the 1974 floods where 500 people were evacuated with the levels reaching up to 15mts in some places, the outlying stations were isolated for 7 weeks, I will post a photo of the marker along the trip. There is a large salt plain area where vegetation is scarce and some very pretty billabongs along the track. We arrived at Critters Camp where the train did a very nifty three point turn to go back the other way we all hopped off to stretch our legs, there was a bus waiting there with passengers to take a one way trip back to Normanton, once we were all back on the train we headed on back to the station. We enjoyed the trip, there wasn't a terrible lot to see on the way which is a bit disappointing, I don't think they would get a lot of return business and talking to the guards we think it runs at a loss, it is a sister train to the Kuranda Railway which is very popular so hopefully this keeps the Gulflander going because we lose too many of our old railway systems. We drove straight back to camp from here.
Our last full day in Karumba, it constantly amazes me how quick our time in each area goes, I think it has something to do with how much we are enjoying ourselves. We walked down to our backyard today to sit and have our morning coffee along the top of the jetty. There are so many boats that leave from here each day and we sat and watched a couple being launched, all headed across the river to the mangroves, not sure if they are fishing or not but we can't think of any other reason they would be there. The water is turquoise, the sun is rippling through the trees overhead and we are sitting enjoying the whole experience reading and sipping our coffees, perfect. After that I spent the morning organising business type things and editing the many photos I took yesterday before we packed up and headed off to Karumba Point to the Sunset Tavern for lunch. We found a table and then I went to order two courses and a garlic bread, we are in the habit of going out for a meal in sharing our food, it gives us the opportunity of both tasting a couple of dishes and saves that whole agony of having two dishes to choose from. We chose a sharing plate of deep fried chicken and chili jam prawns, unfortunately they made a mistake on the order and when I went to pick up our food we had the chicken dish, the chili prawns and garlic prawns instead of the garlic bread, they quickly amended the order in good form and all the food was very enjoyable and tasty. After lunch we walked along the foreshore before returning to the car. We are moving on tomorrow either to Burke and Wills Roadhouse or Cloncurry which is a long drive. If we get to Burke and Wills Roadhouse and don't feel like we can go any further we will stop there other wise we will have lunch here and then proceed to Cloncurry.
Comments