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Published: June 11th 2009
Krys the Savannah King
Supposedly a life-size replica!We stayed for a night at Bedrock Village Caravan Park in Mt Surprise. This was a nice caravan park and worth remembering if we are back this way one day. It was also where Steve, one of the workers here, identified the Brown tree snake that we had come across at Lake Eacham - see our previous blog entry. Steve also invited us into his cabin to show us all the bits and pieces of fossils, shells, skulls, etc that he had collected over the years, which were very interesting.
From Mt Surprise we continued heading west on
The Savannah Way , which connects Cairns in the east with Broome in the west via the Gulf of Carpentaria. We stopped for lunch at Lake Belmore, a few kilometres out of Croydon, and then continued into Normanton. We decided to stay here for a few nights as the annual Normanton Show and Rodeo was being held on the Friday and during the weekend. We stayed at the Normanton Tourist Park in the centre of town and were placed in a site right next to their great 25 metre swimming pool and heated spa. Annelies and Thomas spent a lot of the time in the
pool where they made friends with a young girl, Jemma. The three of them spent lots of time together and we also made friends with Jemma's parents, Di and Pete.
On Thursday we drove down to the 'wharf' and across the new Jim Whyte bridge, and walked over the Norman River on the old bridge. Next to the bridge were some wetlands with abundant lillies and bird life, including some large sarus cranes. We also popped into the Visitor Centre, which had photos of the January floods as well as the higher floods of 1974. It was amazing to see just how much water was over the roads and bridges we had just visited. We had a chat to Deb in the Visitor Centre who was born and raised in Darwin and has lived in Normanton for a few years. Her aunt teaches at Nightcliff Primary School - it's a small world. Afterwards, we visited the old gaol and a replica of 'Krys the Savannah King', a crocodile shot in the Norman River by Krystina Pawlowski in 1957. Krys measured 8.63 metres (28 ft 4 in) long, weighed over 2 tons and is said to be the largest recorded
Normanton Show & Rodeo
Annelies & Jemma on the Twister crocodile captured in the world. It was absolutely huge although the girth looked a bit unrealistic, but apparently the replica is made to the dimensions listed in the Guiness Book of Records based on photos taken at the time, which were lost in the 1974 floods.
After an early dinner we watched the Normanton Rodeo street parade. The parade was led by many horse riders of all ages. The Rural Fire Brigade truck decided to have a 'water war' with the Purple Pub. Someone in the Purple Pub was valiantly shooting back with their fire hose, but the fire truck definitely won. We're not sure if this 'attack' was because the parade and much of the Normanton Rodeo was sponsored by the Albion Hotel, a rival pub. It was a fun event to be part of and Annelies and Thomas scored lots of lollies.
On Friday morning we headed out to the show quite early and climbed up on the railings with the other early birds to watch the camp draft event, which went all day. Each contestant has to isolate one cow from a group of cattle in a small pen, herd it through the gate and
into the arena. Then they have to herd the cow around two posts in a figure eight pattern and then back through another two posts, the finish line. It looked very difficult and only about 1 in 20 cowboys/girls were successful within the time limit. Some very talented horsemen/women entered, all vying for a $2,000 first prize, and it was very interesting to watch. Later, we wandered over to watch some of the Gymkhana events and saw lots of tiny tots on horses and ponies. We visited the pavilion and looked at the art, craft and cooking entries. The photographic section was really big with lots of amazing photos. After lunch (a very tasty burger), Annelies and Jemma went on a couple of rides together (Twister and Octopus) while Thomas raised a sweat on the large jumping castles. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool back at the caravan park.
The first night of out stay coincided with the first State of Origin (Rugby League) match between Queensland and New South Wales. Lots of noise filtered across from homes and hotels nearby with celebrations going on late into the night, especially since Queensland won. Lots of
extra people in town meant that the nights were punctuated with yells, calls and lots of music. Despite the night time noise we had a great and relaxing few days in Normanton.
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