Sun 20th July – Day 71: Croydon - Karumba

t always amazes me that when the kids have no school days they wake up with the dawn, and during the week they are hard to get out of bed before 8am – how does this happen? It’s not like I said last night “no school tomorrow so don’t sleep in!” Anyway we were all up early so kids jumped in pool, I went for a bike ride to local Visitor information centre – can’t get over how nice everyone is in this town. For a small town they are very big on hospitality. The women at the Info centre gave me a myriad of brochures on local camping areas and explained that from now on all bodies of water should be viewed with suspicion unless checked out with locals first (salt water crocodiles abound). Made a quick phone call and managed to book us into the Sunset caravan park at Karumba for the next 2 night, although the local goss in the park this morning was how crowded the town was – we may well bush camp further out but will check on the way in.
By 11am the temp was pushing 30°C and we headed 4km North of the town to Lake Belmore, the 5000 mega litre town water supply, regularly stocked with fish, with floating pontoons and open for swimming – we spent a wonderful hour lazing in the sun and jumping off the pontoons.
Stopped off at the Chinese Temple – archaeological dig site on the outskirts of town that was one of Australia’s largest rural settlements of Chinese. Not much left as the buildings were made from readily available local materials (canvas, bark, timer, corrugated iron & stone), but artefacts are still being found. Kids bored by this, so stayed in the car while I contemplated 2 Chinese Proverbs:
‘On earth no feast lasts forever’
‘Do not wait until you are thirsty to dig a well’
Liked both of them!
Stopped 25km from Normanton at Leichhardt Lagoon Camping area for a look-see - kids keen to camp as water looked soooo inviting – time now for ‘the Croc talk’, disappointed faces and kids decided didn’t want to stay here after all. Onwards to the safety of the pool at Karumba we go…shame, but at 33°C now we need swims!
Flicking through our Karumba brochure I was surprised to see a Vet mentioned and decided to do some investigation – maybe I could do a couple of hours in their clinic. An internet search revealed it was a branch practice from out of Mt Isa and the Owner was lamenting an outbreak of the deadly Hendra virus in a couple of his staff at another practice (reported by the ABC). Hendra is a particulary nasty horse virus – deadly to most and an often deadly zoonoses to boot. Anyway I discovered the clinic only opens about once a month and apart from mentioning it to Pete, thought no more about it.
Karumba a town where the local population is probably about 200 which is invaded by long-term visitors who choose to “winter over” in the Gulf, away from their freezing homes in the South. I imagine it is cheaper for some of these grey nomads to stay here for 4-6 months than pay the heating bills in Vic or SA. Indeed most of our neighbours in the park had been there for 3 months already, a prerequisite for set up was a Sat dish and an AFL supporter flag. We had neither but they took pity on us as we set up in the sweltering heat and turned a blind eye when Pete watched the Swans beat Carlton on the LCD screen through the privacy screen!
Once again we used the bikes for transport and rode up to the local pub on the waterfront for a beer while watching the sunset. Fish dinner across the road at well known ‘Ash’s Café’ (up for sale if anyone is interested!) and we rode home in the full moonlight.
Karumba Sunset Caravan Park (Powered $41.50/night)