Karumba to Atherton

Karumba Brolga

1 July 2013

We arrived in Karumba after a mere 72 km drive from Normanton.  Camp was soon established and coffee was made.  We went for a drive to Karumba Point and checked out the sights.

Dinner was 2 kg of fresh prawns shared between the four of us.

I was up at 7am and went for a walk, camera in hand.  One photo shows my walk mate who followed me for a while, while the other shows the Norman river at Karumba. 

In 1937 the Flying Boat service operated by Qantas and BOAC established a base in Karumba to accommodate and refuel the Short Sunderland aircraft on their routes to London. The port then served as an RAAF Catalina base during WWII - the Catalinas operated from Karumba into Indonesia, New Guinea and Timor.  Both forms of flying boats used the Norman river for landing and take off.

Norman river at Karumba

Sunset Cruise Vessel

Wednesday 3rd July was a quiet day.  Shirley, Kay and I walked the 5 km from Karumba to Karumba Point.  It was a fairly boring walk but we rewarded ourselves with a mango smoothee.  It was most enjoyable.  After Darryl joined us we went for a walk and checked out the results that were returned from a fishing charter.  The response was disappointing and was attributed to the recent winds.

By now it was lunch time and we unanimously agreed on barra and chips for lunch.  The $13 for two pieces of barra and chips was OK.  All were excellent.

 

After a bit of diary catch-up Darryl and I hit the pool for 25 lengths.  Well maybe a bit less.  After all it was a 12 metre pool.
 

At 4:45 we joined the sunset cruise for a drift up the Norman river and then out to sea for a couple of kilometres.  The commentary was supported by beer, wine, prawns and other tasty goodies.  It was a pleasant evening with lots of bird life on display, notable the Jabiru (both male and female).

 

4th July is American Independence Day.  It is also my birthday.  We had a top temperature around 29 degrees.  It was a relaxing day with time for a mango smoothee, with Shirley cooking some blueberry muffins to serve as a birthday cake.

The day culminated with dinner at the Karumba Point Hotel overlooking the sunset.  The barra, chips and salad for $28 was magnificent.  It was a great day.
 

Sunset at Karumba Point - 4 July 2013

 Day 47 was a Friday and was a rest day before packing up and heading east on Saturday.  While I cooked date scones Darryl washed their car and caravan.

We have not been on a fishing charter as the recent winds have made productive fishing ventures fairly scarce and infrequent.  However the one place that you always seem to be able to get fish was the fish shop.  So that's where we went.  Our purchase consisted of 3 kg barramundi, one kg king salmon and one kg shelled raw prawns.  Darryl and I then rewarded ourselves by visiting the “Animals Bar” at the Karumba pub,  We were not sure if the “Animals Bar” got its name from photos of local fish and animals or the range of clientele. After Happy Hour we rewarded our wives by doing a Paul Hogan and having a “shrimp on the barby” - in our case it was prawns, chips and salad. Yum.

Saturday saw us depart Karumba and head east.  First stop was Normanton (72 km) to stock up on provisions and then it was onwards to Croydon (another 140 km).  Many years ago Croydon used to be the 3rd largest town in Queensland—thanks to the local gold rush.  Now it has 300 permanent residents.  However Croydon is not to be sneezed at, as they have done their homework well.

Firstly they have the oldest store in Australia and it was a delight to walk through.
Then they have a pub with lots of character, and it was a pity that we still had some distance to travel, and could not taste their wares.

They also have a historical precinct where they have preserved and restored former buildings of importance like the courthouse, the jail, the hospital, school, etc. 

Croydon Historical Precinct

The architecture was interesting with the walls having a frame and internal cladding, but no external cladding.  I wonder if someone can send me an email and please explain “why is it so”.  Most of the buildings had an audio facility that provided the history of that particular building.

It was very enlightening, particularly the note about the benefactor who left money to the hospital.  Check out the photo. 
He apparently had a dislike for his wife or a strange sense of humour.  

It was about 33 degrees at lunch time so we drove the few km to Belmore Lake and had lunch overlooking the lovely water catchment area.

Although there was a sign warning of fresh water crocodiles there were a number of people enjoying the cooling effects of the water.  We departed Croydon as the temperature pecked at 34 degrees and looked for a shady tree to spend the night. We found the narrow bridge with low sides that caused a dear friend of ours (no need for names) to be concerned with the low sides and narrow bridge width.

Beside the bridge was a rock with the art work showed in the adjacent photo. There was no indication as to whether the artist was indigenous or was maybe a grey nomad with some flair.  We moved on.  Some time later common sense prevailed and we moved onto Georgetown, a powered camp site and a shady tree. 

Dinner (again) was barra, chips and salad—Darryl cooking the barra, me on the chips and the ladies on the salad. At it was probably still in the low 30’s we rejected the idea of joining the local dance at the rodeo



The Sabbath was spent on a tour of Cobbold Gorge. After a coffee the four of us joined a tour of 12 other people and two guides and went driving on the 4WD bus shown here.  The head guide was a very knowledge character, and part comedian, called “Scruffy”.  His knowledge of plants and bush tucker was amazing, and we were able to sniff and view a wide range of plant products.

After a 15 minute drive we departed the bus and went for a 60 minute walk.  This is where the majority of the flora wisdom was provided.  We were also able to view the gorge from above.

 

"Scruffy”, the guide

 

At the end of the walk we were rested (as it was about 34 degrees) in two flat bottom boats, that were quite narrow so that they could navigate the gorge. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boats are powered by electric motors with the batteries being recharged by solar panels.

Our 20 minute trip up the gorge was spectacular.  We spotted a number of fresh water crocodiles, a couple being around 2
metres long.

In places the gorge was so narrow that the boats had to manoeuvre carefully between the high gorge sides.  As usual the photos do not do justice to a very scenic part of Australia.

The Undara Lava Tubes was our target for Monday. However we had to ensure around 140 km of strong head winds and varied road surfaces as we headed west. The good bits were very good and the bad bits were very narrow. Although the hills were a change from the flat lands they also added to the poor fuel consumption.

We stopped at Mt Surprise for a break and gained our first surprise of the day, where there was an automatic under/side car wash to get ride of the soil from mid western Queensland.  It was multiple high pressure water hoses that sprayed the sides and underneath of the car and caravan.  Both were so dirty and we had so much fun that we did it twice.  The car and caravan looked much better after the experience.

Darryl and Kay stayed at the “Joe and Jo” caravan park in Mt Surprise and it looked very impressive.  The pies they sold were excellent.

Shirley and I pressed on to Undara, and arrived just before the rain—all 86 drops of it.  We set up camp and went for a drive (about 15 km) to the Kalkani Crater.  Although it did not have the spectacular scenery of many other recent places we have seen it is an amazing geologist phenomenon.

View from Kalkani crater rim looking away from the crater

 

It is a volcano rising out of the flat plains (yep, we have passed the hills).  The soil allows plenty of flora with large numbers of trees (albeit small), bushes and grasses.  

View looking into Kalkani crater from the rim. 

The bare bit in the middle of the photo is the bottom of the crater

All of the above prevent any decent photos but the following gives you a bit of an idea.  We parked at the bottom, had a 600 m walk to the rim, 1300 m walk around the rim, then 600 m back down.

If Mary Poppins had been there with her umbrella the wind would have allowed her to float back to the car—and maybe beyond.

We arrived back at camp and had an ice cream –as you do.

We then enjoyed watching some of the local fauna.  The joey (see photo) seemed to be looking in the pantry to see if there was any food to be had.  I think Mum was hoping the kid would leave home.  She was out of luck as the little blighter then climbed into the pouch.

The bird on the bough seemed extremely vain, just sitting there allowing lots of photos to be taken by many people.

The crow (no photo) found some onions in the back of a twin cab ute camper (tent on roof style), removed three and proceeded to test all three onions.  After a while I intervened and later had a chuckle with the owners when they returned.

While Shirley was cooking dinner I chatted to a couple who have just driven up to the pointy bit of Australia.  They were expounding the merits of the Undara camp (in which we were both standing), but baulked at the cost of $170 per slab of Carlton Draught beer (yes, $170 for 24 stubbies).  Wow.

After dinner we adjourned to the camp fire to listen to a local musician who initiated a sing-a-long around the campfire.

Undara Lava Tubes was about to happen.  Imagine a volcano (called Undara) spewing molten lava in a continuous flow for around seven years along a creek bed for 140 km—the longest lava flow in the world.  Then imagine the outer skin of that flow cooling and setting hard, with the molten lava still flowing through the “tube” - just like water through a garden hose.  When the volcano stopped its activity the last spew of lava continued along the “tube/hose” as water would down a hose.  The virtually-empty tube remained—around 140 km of it.  Over time many sections of the “skin” fell in, creating many short tubes and many sections of rain forest—as the soil in the caved-in areas was extremely fertile.  These sections of rain forest can be seen from high vantage points as was the case for us from the rim at Kalkani Crater yesterday.

We visited four tubes and each was about 15-25 metres wide and 10-15 metres high.  Some tubes narrow down to nothing, thanks to erosion and rock falls.  The patterns on the surfaces were amazing (see photo). 

The tubes are inhabited by many bats and the odd spider and snake.

Some cane toads have visited but die as they cannot get out.

Pattern on the roof

 

We departed Undara on Wednesday and headed north east to Ravenshoe.  The change in landscape as we moved from the Savannah plains to the Atherton tablelands was amazing.  Brown grass became green, sunshine became drizzle, dry countryside became fertile food growing areas (such as sugar cane, avocados, mangoes, peanuts, bananas), beef cattle became dairy cattle, dusty car became muddy car, clear dry roads became foggy dangerous roads, etc.  The reason why the “Misty Mountains” are called that became obvious.

Millstream Falls

We stopped at the Millstream National Park and took a photo of the waterfall.  What a change we had witnessed within 140 km.

We then detoured to visit the Mabi Forest Curtain Fig tree.  It has to be seen to be believed—in the middle of a dense rain forest.  The curtain is formed by roots that drop from its angular trunk.

We had a quick look at Atherton and camped at a free camp beside a war memorial park about 12 km north of Atherton.  The role of the Atherton table lands in WWII was spelled out very clearly—another piece of Australian history that is not widely known.  The memorial is a credit to the people who conceived, built and now maintain it.

Our home for the night was shared by about 75 to 80 travelling caravans, motor-homes and tents.

This is the end of report number 5. 

So far we have been away for 52 nights and travelled around 9200 km. 

 

Please stay tuned for future reports.
Comments are welcome.