Day 144 - Karumba to Normanton

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There are at least three Caravan Parks in Karumba (including Karumba Point). We booked in to one at Karumba Point (partly due to the glossy brochure I had picked up along the way which depicted this magnificent sunset over the Gulf).

Unfortunately, our Caravan Park must have been a different one - our site looked out on to the junk yard of the park and then over the fence to some salt flats (which probably get wet on a king tide). Very ordinary.
It is funny how you get stuck in really bad places in caravan parks when you say you are only staying for one night.

We had Normanton to look forward to and the drive back (about 70 kilometres).

Of course, we took our time, checking out the wildlife (hoppers and various birds) driving out of Karumba and when we got to Normanton, we went down a side track to a lagoon off the Norman River where we saw Sarus Cranes for the first time.

Brolgas and Sarus Cranes are very similar - they are both over a metre tall but the Sarus crane is a little bigger and has a little more orange / red on the head and neck. The Sarus Crane is pretty much confined to the Gulf / Far North Queensland so we were pretty excited to finally see some.

Finally we drove in to Normanton and, instead of doing the town walk, we did the town drive. It was way too hot to get out of the air conditioned bus and walk the streets for any length of time. We checked out the water well (in use up until recently).

We drove out to the railway station to see what was happening (Queensland Rail was celebrating 150 years of operation and the locals were throwing a few parties to celebrate). After that we came back to the Normanton Caravan Park and looked for the largest tree to park under.

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Photos

Brolgas near Karumba
Note the minimal amount of red / orange on the head

Sarus Crane near Normanton
Note that the head (and the top of the neck) is almost all red / orange.