The Gulf (Barra Country)

 From Burketown we headed east to Normanton. We stopped off at Leichhardt Falls - hard to comprehend in the dry season the amount of water that heads down the watercourses up here in the wet season. The falls was also where the bitumen ended, so we had another 150 odd km of gravel and dust into Normanton. Just before town we stopped by Burke & Will’s last camp (no.119) on their journey from Melb to the Gulf.

Did I mention Louise is over the dust, well she’s extremely happy for the next couple of weeks we won’t see any, at least with the trailer in tow. Heading into Burketown the trailer tailgate came slightly ajar, covering everything inside with a nice fine layer of dust!

Normanton & Burketown are both cattle towns, though some might argue now that Barra fishing is pulling in more bucks. On the banks of the Norman Rv, it’s also the home of the Gulflander railway, a railway that pretty much goes nowhere, I’m sure the lovely folk at Croydon might disagree though. The day we were there didn’t line up with their timetable so unfortunately we missed out on a classic railway experience. Of interest was their promo video which had Mike Leyland talking up the railway and town up back in the 70s ! It’s also the home of the big Barra and Krys the Croc (also rather large), which Chantal was rapt about as she’s taking photos of all the big stuff we come across in our travels.

Next day we had a short 70km drive to Karumba, the only spot in the southern gulf that you can get/drive to the coast. Now its official reason for its existence is a port for the export of Zinc & Lead and the live export of cattle. But this time of year it’s pretty much filled (even over-flowing) with grey nomads with huge (and very clean) 4wds towing large vans with boats as well, in fact the boat is the crucial item as fishing is the be and end all up here. Actually I haven’t been entirely accurate here, they really aren’t nomads – they come from all corners of the country and plonk themselves up here for between one and four months, and don’t move at all. Average age of said c-park occupants would have to be around 60-65. Also not the place for a sleep in, from 5am onwards the park is a hive of activity with very enthusiastic “male” fisherman banging and clanging everything imaginable !@#$%^& All right for them as they’re back by lunch and no doubt grab an afternoon nap or two. And if you’re looking to steal an immaculate Landcruiser (100 or 200 series) this is the place to come looking, the carpark at just one of the boat ramps I reckon had 100 of them sitting there ready for the taking!

To get into one of the parks at Karumba we actually booked ahead (not something we’re renowned for !) and we lucky to get two nights, even though we would have liked to stay longer. First day we checked out the lie of the place and visited the Barramundi Discovery centre. Here we learnt a heap about what makes Barramundi tick, including how temperamental the females are! Chantal was lucky enough to feed a couple of the big breeding girls – they make an amazing sound as they grab the fish and smash it into little pieces at the back of their throats. Later we went on a cruise up the Norman River doing a bit of croc spotting and taking in the sunset as it dropped over the Gulf. Lachlan and Chantal were lucky enough to steer the boat for 5 minutes or so.

We woke up the next day with an excited little boy – we were off on a fishing charter at midday. Sadly we didn’t score any Barra, but we got a heap of Brim and I got a number of fish I can’t even pronounce, or remember! Lachlan was the first to get his line in and within a minute had the first fish online. I made up ground later to the point Lachlan reckons I had the lucky spot on the boat so we did a swap, guess what – he didn’t catch any from there on, all to do with the technique I said! Small world, we bumped into a guy who lives at The Basin, when he’s not up here that is. We had fresh fried fish that night and managed to catch the sunset from the point with a heap of other tourists.

The next day was rather uneventful except for a 500 odd km drive to Mt Surprise where we stopped for the night, stopping at Croydon, an old gold mining town for lunch.

Today we had a cruisy day, first stopping at Millstream Falls, supposedly the widest falls in OZ. We had lunch at Ravenshoe where they had their market and were lucky to catch the steam train heading off on its tourist run. It was soon after on the way to Atherton that the rain started, not heavy but it made visibility within the rainforest areas pretty average. It was even hard to see the huge wind turbine farm we stopped at. Lachlan wanted to check out “The Crystal Caves” in Atherton, which is a huge collection of crystals (& gems) set out through a series of tunnels and quite well presented. We even got a hard hat which Louise looked a treat in, though it saved my scone a few times as some parts of the tunnels are very low. We decided to move onto Mareeba to hopefully get out of the rain as it’s considerably lower than Atherton. The c-park there was full which was a stroke of luck as we’re now in a great little bush park about 15km out of Mareeba at Granite Gorge. The kids love it as they got to feed the tiny rock wallabies here, inc a real little tacker who just popped out of the pouch for a few minutes. We also are now in fresh fruit country and it was unreal to have a pineapple tonight that actually tasted like a pineapple rather than the crap we get in Melb. Tomorrow we head to Clifton Beach, which is about 20km north of Cairns for a 5 days of R&R in a unit with Louise’s parents – yeah, no setting or packing up the camp!