Blogs from Karumba, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Well we have made it to the Gulf of Carpentaria, not actually planned for today but we decided to push on and get here a day earlier, We are all spent!!!( We travelled around 510 ks today ) Not a great nights sleep last night, we slept between road trains wizzing by, the free camp was close to the road,as they say you get what you pay for. We stopped in Cloncurry to top up on fuel,then headed off for Burke and Wills roadhouse, a tiny Oasis in the middle of nowhere, we stopped in there and all had steak sandwhiches for lunch then headed for the Gulf, Our car copped two stone chips one has now turned into a rather large crack, we only replaced the windscreen about 4 weeks ago, so not happy!!! We ... read more

5-9-11 off again, on our way to Lawn Hill. We stopped at Normanton for supplies & fuel. We stopped & had a look at Normanton Railway Station & the Gulf Lander train. Then off again to a freebie we had heard about & not in the Camps Book. It was 60 km south of Normanton at the Flinders River Crossing, a great spot. We set up camp & went down to the river where the fish was jumping, set Margy up on a chair as her foot & side were hurting from her fall & we had a fish. Guess what, we could not catch anything, they were teasing us. It was very hot, but cooled off at night. 6-9-11 off early & stopped at Burke & Wills Roadhouse for fuel & then onto Gregory Downs ... read more

Karumba … fishing capital This morning we were woken early by rather strong winds. The caravan was filled with dust, and it took quite some time to do anything after our driving effort of the previous day. When we finally emerged from the cocoon, we explored Karumba, and found there really wasn’t much to this place. We booked a table at the Sunset Tavern for Anthony’s birthday. We went to the grocery store to restock the cupboards and found the prices to be between 50 – 100% more expensive than anything in Sydney. Makes me wonder how people could live up here full time. We did treat ourselves to a seafood meal at the fish market (Raptis & Co .. who control the majority of the commercial fishing in northern Australia … owned by the Musemeci ... read more

Karumba was very unexpectedly busy with many many many fisherman. We came here to see what Peter's Uncle Bernie thought was so good. We can see the attraction but I don't think Bernie would like it as much any more. Too many tourists! Unfortunately the tides and the moon and the cold weather were not all that good for fishing but we did catch a nice Estury Cod 38.5 cm which we could keep. Everything else was too small. The people with boats were the only ones really catching anything and that seemed to be mackeral mostly. We wern't too keen to go out on the fishing kayak here as they do a croc tour everyday and if one of them didn't get us maybe a tiger shark would. Fresh cooked Gulf Prawns 1kg for $15 ... read more

At Sunset Caravan Park, Karumba, where the Outback meets the sea. Famous in Australia for prawns and barramundi. Today we got up “early” and biked into town about 8kms each way. Wanted to have a coffee at the Hot Bread Shop, but they didn’t have any milk. Bought a couple of very nice pies and rode home. Mucked around. One of Karumba’s unusual features is that it usually only has one tide each day. Apparently the land configuration in the Gulf of Carpentaria is such that every second high tide is cancelled out. Tides range from about 1.4m to about 3m. Next day teamed up with Peter & Leigh Purches from Sydney and we drove back to Normanton to ride on the local train. Its run a diesel railcar since the 1920’s and runs as an ... read more

Lawn Hill and Karumba In the last entry we left you at a free camp called Wonarah Bore, just east of Barkly homestead. We camped there rather than the homestead (which is more of a motel/roadhouse) as on our last trip through here in 2008, we swore that we saw Ned Kelly standing by the fuel pumps, and had no intention of filling his pockets with our hard earned! It was the best of an ordinary lot en route to Mt.Isa. Mt. Isa was not on our itinerary, but we had time to kill before arriving at the Lawn Hill National park which we had booked (and postponed) whilst in Melbourne. So we decided that there was no real alternative but to stop over there. We did find a far better caravan park than we had ... read more