The Gulf

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Sorry it’s been awhile but we have been busy and in lots of remote places which don’t have the internet, most of the people out there probably don’t know what it is anyway.

We headed to Normanton after leaving Cloncurry via the Burke and Wills Roadhouse.
There was a bit to see around Normanton so we stayed for a couple of nights. Here is the place where the largest croc in the world was captured, measuring 28ft 4ins long.
We did some swimming (in the pool), saw the famous Gulflander and the purple pub, bought some bait and got the fishing gear sorted before heading up to Karumba.

What we didn’t realize is how busy Karumba can be!

We couldn’t get a site. One caravan park was completely full, another had only one night available and the other had nothing till the next day. The only other option was to stay in the overflow which was still $20 a night and no facilities.
We didn’t know what to do. Mick had wanted to come here for years and was disappointed to find out there wasn’t anywhere to stay. I suggested we stay at the overflow (ended up missing out on the caravan park with one night only) for one night and booked in at the park the next day for a couple of nights.
We were able to get into the park for three nights, which was a relief.
We tried our hand at fishing and didn’t get any bites, so after having an early dinner we headed for a different spot for some night fishing. Here we got plenty of bites but nothing took.
Once we moved camps we tried fishing again. Mick was fishing in the spot I was the previous night and kept getting snagged on something in front of us (the reason I moved up the beach a little). This is where I learnt he isn’t the biggest fisherman.
The first fish I caught was a toad fish. I cut it off and threw him back.
We went to the Sunday markets and got Barra and Chips for lunch before trying our luck again. I pulled in a little brim and whiting. Unfortunately Mick didn’t catch anything so far.
From here we headed back through Normanton to start the Savannah Way. Only 36klms into the trip we stopped at Burke and Wills camp 119 which was their furthest north camp. We continued on crossing numerous rivers which were still flowing over (due to the recent rains) before staying at Leichhardt Falls for a night before stopping at Burketown’s Albert River for another, we stayed north of Burketown where we explored around the salt flats and found the old boiling down works and some nice campsites on the river.
Heading towards Lawn Hill we took a slight detour to cross the Gregory River. Just outside of Gregory downs we punctured another tyre, patched him up and continued to Lawn Hill.
We ended up staying just outside Lawn Hill at Adel’s Grove for 5 nights. This would have to be one of my favourite places to stay a nice shade campsite close to the river. The colour of the water was an amazing turquoise and it felt like you were the only ones there. We did all of the 6 walks around Lawn Hill and on the last walk saw our first crocodile. He was a 2 ft freshie just sunning him self on a log. After packing up on the final day we went back to canoe up the river. It was quite peaceful paddling up the river but it felt like I was doing all the work as I was paddling about 5 strokes to Mick’s 1, Mick said it was because I had such weak paddling.
We stayed at Kingfisher Camp before heading to Borroloola and staying at King Ash Bay these roads would have to be the worst we have done so far due to the chopped up state of them after the rain, we were still averaging around 50klm to 60klm per hour though.
We continued heading west towards Mataranka staying at Butterfly Springs and stopping at Towns River for lunch, whilst at Butterfly springs we went in for a quick refreshing dip. Also on this day we walked through the southern lost city which was quite scenic, from here to where we camped we had a bushfire to the right of us which was still there the next day, so we kept an eye on it.
Here we saw another croc this one was a 6ft saltie.
As it was still early we continued to Roper Bar, crossed the river and headed to the camp ground. As we pulled in one of the other campers told us it sounded like we had done a wheel bearing in the trailer, Mick had already picked up on this noise.
After having a look it turned out to be a single brake pad worn right through so Mick just removed the trailer brakes.
Next we headed to Mataranka and stayed at Elsey National Park.
We had a quick dip in the thermal pools at the Homestead and another at Bitter Springs, both around 36°C and then left for Katherine.

From here we are heading to Katherine Gorge, Kakadu National Park and Darwin.

We are having perfect weather about 30°C everyday (the last of the extra blankets has come off) and are enjoying every minute.

Till next time, hopefully it won’t be as long between posts.

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