Crocodiles, large and small

And so we left Karumba on July 4, after stuffing ourselves with prawns and fish every day . . . and buying frozen barramundi for special fish meals somewhere else on our travels.

The only trouble with Karumba was that it was full of Victorians and there was an unseasonal southerly blowing that had everyone rummaging for their winter woollens, just as we were leaving.

We visited the barramundi hatchery there; and saw a pretty big transfer vessel arrive to fill up with zinc that had been pumped 300+ km from a mine near Lawn Hill in a kind of slurry, then dried at the big Karumba Point plant, ready for export. The transfer vessel takes it out into the Gulf where even bigger bulk containers wait for it.

Although most other places had had their Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea for cancer research in May, it’s always at the Karumba Point tavern the first week in July (that’s when there are most visitors in town, I suspect). We left that morning so didn’t take part, but we did our bit, by having much-needed haircuts from a retired hairdresser in the caravan park who was giving everything from her $10 haircuts to the cause.

Replica of the monster croc at Normanton.

So, on to Normanton, with its huge replica crocodile next to the historic shire council offices. The croc is called Krys, after the female crocodile shooter who took out the real animal in the 1950s. It was a monster, 8.5m long, 4m in girth and weighed 2 tonnes, and the replica is very popular for photos among tourists.

The road from Normanton to Croydon runs through typical savannah, flat with just a bit of scrub, but it was brightened with the appearance of the Gulflander, a railmotor that was trundling along on its weekly trip from Normanton to Croydon, staying overnight and returning the next day. So we did a bit of train-chasing, getting ahead of it and finding an open spot in which to photograph it.

Rear view of the Gulflander trundling through the bush.

We had thought about staying at Croydon (pop. 300) but after visiting its excellent info centre and finding out all about its historic gold-mining past (35 pubs in the 1880s),walking around its original Chinatown (just a bit of bushland now but with interesting markers) and driving out to a lovely dam just outside town (no camping allowed) we decided to keep going. We found a spot beside the road where we nudged into the bush, and within minutes had a blue-backed kookaburra for company as well as apostle birds. During the night a small station-wagon pulled up and we found the next morning it contained 3 young Germans bound for Darwin. They’d hired the car in Cairns and had yet to strike any dirt roads. But the direction they were going, there would be plenty ahead of them!

Next morning we had only about 70km to reach Georgetown, a very nice little town full of trees. We came to Forsayth after another 40km. We were snug in the little caravan park there, full of people fossicking in the surrounding hills for agate and gold, as it’s also an old gold-mining area.

My Dad had had a mine here in the 1940-50 era and it’s where I started school. We drove around its couple of streets looking at things I remembered, such as playing with the police sergeant’s daughter as a pre-schooler while the resident blacktracker looked after us.

The Savannahlander, another railmotor, pulled in in the late afternoon. That was a sentimental occasion for John and I as it was on that 4-day trip from Cairns and back, that we had met 3 years ago. We celebrated with a roast pork meal at the pub later, meeting all kinds of characters.



One of the baby crocs

And then we left for Cobbold Gorge, on a cattle station about 40km from Forsayth. The village has accommodation, a bar and restaurant as well as a cafe, a dam and a pretty special, brand new infinity-edge pool above the dam. The caravan area was nice, not crowded, and we had only a short time to settle in before our scheduled 1.30pm guided tour to the gorge. This is a narrow defile, not nearly as wide as Katherine Gorge or Lawn Hill Gorge. We rode out there, across the dry Robertson River, in a special 4WD bus, then walked around in the bush for about 1.5 hours, climbing to the escarpment to look into the gorge and visiting the grave of an early gold-miner and shopkeeper who died along a track, supposedly speared by blacks. Then we came back to the creek and boarded little electric boats which glided noiselessly up the gorge and back for about an hour. It is quite breathtaking and we were all thrilled to see a freshwater croc basking in the afternoon sun. We’d already seen two babies from the latest clutch on the sides of the creek.

Cobbold Gorge.

The next morning we left to visit an old schoolfriend of mine who runs a nearby property. We’d been at school at Forsayth together so once again, poor John’s head swam as we chatted about people and places. After morning tea and lunch with him and his wife and visiting daughter and grandson, we set off for Georgetown, where he’d told an aunt of his, whom I hadn’t seen since I was 7 years old, we’d call. This we did and had a great old time with her before setting out in the late afternoon for Mt Surprise.

We stopped about halfway along, spending the night beside the road, tucked away behind a tree, with a Brahman bull feeding peacefully not far away. We love this bush camping as it is so peaceful and uncomplicated.