We left Cairns on Thursday and hit the Savanah Way - what a drive. Even though the weather wasn't great the view was amazing, we drove through Atherton and Ravenshoe (pronounced Ravens-Toe). We were going to stop in at Undara and see the caves, but the tours took over two hours and they had no food (it was 2pm and hadn't eaten all day) so we jumped into the big rig and made our way to Georgetown.
Georgetown was a sleepy little town and we booked ourselves into a Motel for the night. We also decided that we would eat at the Motel Restaurant. When our entree (garlic bread) came out microwaved we should have fixed up the bill and made a run for it, but we were famished and lazy so we ordered our mains. I have eaten some pretty terrible meals in my life, but I probably have to say that this meal was one of the worst so far.
Waz found a DTMR branch at Georgetown.... should he transfer????
payback for eating those crocodile springrolls in Cooktown
Waz ate most of the spring rolls
the purple pub
72kms later and we arrived in Karumba. Initially I thought that we may have taken a wrong turn to a retirement village, but quickly realized that we were just seeing the hoards of Grey Nomads who annually visit Karumba with their 20 foot caravans. We also noticed a sign at the entrance of the caravan park which informed us that there had been chlorination issues, and the water was unsafe to drink. Luckily we had stopped in at First Choice in Cairns so we had plenty of beer and spirits, so dehydration would not be a problem (just winding up our parents now).
It was a slow start to our fishing adventure, but on our second day in the water our luck improved. Between the two of us we caught about 20 Grunter, but only one was legal and a nice queenfish. Unlike the GMs (grey nomads) we threw the undersized ones back and were happy to only take back enough fish for our dinner that night. If you feel strongly about sustainable fishing I would urge you not to go to the filleting table of the Karumba Point Tourist Park, it is unbelievable how the GMs disregard bag limits and minimum sizes. When we weren't fishing we were chilling out at the Sunset pub enjoying a cold beer (remember the water was unsafe to drink and it has one of the best aspects to watch the sunset in Queensland if not Oz) or riding our fold up bikes around the town.
sigh............... another sunset....
Waz enjoying the bike..........
After four days of hearing the GMs moan (Waz got chipped by a cranky old fart at the boat ramp while doing nothing wrong) we decided that it was time to leave. The big lesson learnt from our Karumba experience was, do not, under any circumstances visit Karumba between May and mid August unless you like mixing it with gray nomads, packed boat ramps and camps with absolute road frontage. Would be an awesome spot any other time.
might bring a puppy home with us....
The crowded rocks at Karumba
Didn't have a wide lense to capture all of the boats at the ramp....
Our friends Kev and Carm (Kev Carmody) had arrived a few days earlier so we arranged a nice little trip out to Kingfisher Camp (about 100kms from the NT border) on our way further north west towards Boorooloola.
Leichardt Falls
watch out for those angry cows........
The drive to Kingfisher was an interesting one and we were finally back on some dirt - we love corrugations!!! We were flagged down by some German backpackers who had broken down on the side of the road just outside Burketown (what a dump but nice pub - dont expect food though). While Waz and Kev tinkered with the car we learnt that their old petrol 4WD had got stuck in a river crossing at 3pm the previous afternoon. Unfortuantely for them, no cars passed until lunch time the next day so they had to spend 12 hours in the croc infested river until they were rescued. The boys managed to fix the car, and they were on their way again.
Waz got an icebreak in Burketown, but broke his last pair of pluggers
We had planned to stay at Kingfisher Camp for 2 nights, but as soon as we arrived we knew that we would have to extend this by at least another night or two - there wasn't a caravan or grey nomad to be seen. King Fisher Camp was located on a beautiful 5km waterhole on the Nicholson River which happened to be home to squillions of fresh water crocodiles. On a typical day we would get up when it was warm enough, slowly caffeinate and breakfast ourselves and then head out on the river for a bit of croc spotting and fishing and head back to camp for late afternoon snacks and beers followed by dinner around the camp fire. We tried to extract local information from Young Mate (he was temporarily running the camp ground) but he was a couple of B52s short of a tackle box and hadn't been blessed in the brain department, all the same he was a nice bloke but wasn't able to offer us any local knowledge. He also had weird googly eyes and freaked me out a little bit. The fishing was a bit slow, but lots of fun. We caught archer fish, sooty grunter, mouth or mighty, long toms and a big stinking cat fish. There were barra there, we saw them every day and Waz hooked one that was over a metre but was unable to get the mongrel. After four nights at King Fisher it was time to make a move so we hit the road early and headed towards Hell's Gates, our final destination being 7 Emu Station.
fresh water croc - isn't he cute
sooty grunter
waterhole at KingFisher Camp
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