Sept. 3 ... Karumba

This is our sixth day here and Linda has been very constructive, completing some French study each day. Myself, on the other hand, has done very little except read, check out the river and sunsets, a bit of shopping, watching movies and generally being lazy!!

This caravan park is a great place; opposite the mouth of the Norman River, adjacent to the only boat ramp in town, a great swimming pool, (pretty cool water but an excellent way to cool off when the day heats up), friendly people and the most sublime weather. Most days are around the low 30's but are tempered by a refreshing breeze off the water, so it never gets too hot.

Looking down our road in the park...plenty of shade.

Most of the campers/caravanners here are fishermen; and most also have a small tinny for their fishing. The fishing seems to be pretty successful by the size and number of fish we see at the fish cleaning area each day. The river is also used by a small cargo ship (called a barge up here) that takes loads of minerals(lead, copper and zinc) from a mine south of here, to a much larger ship anchored in the Gulf. The daily arrival and departure of this ship/barge has all the visitors happily taking photos. The Port is also used for the live export of cattle, although that hasn't resumed since the ban in July. Apart from that there are numerous trawlers (both for prawns and fish), crabbing, amateur fisherman and the odd tourist boat on the river each day...so plenty to look at. The tidal flows here are really unusual.....some days they have one, other days four, but mostly only two tides per day. This occurs because the tides flow East/West from and to the Indian Ocean across the top of the Gulf, and we are so far away from there that most of the tidal energy is dissipated by the time it gets here.

The ore-carrying ship/barge.

The mouth of the Norman River.

Saw some more Brolgas the other day...this family of parent and baby(no colours) landed near the boat ramp the other day....metres away from us. Wallabies also live near the park and hop all around us during the day and night.

A Brolga family

We are staying out at Karumba Point ( one pub, one shop and one cafe), and drove into "town" yesterday, about 7 kms away. We went to the PO, the chemist for a script, the butcher, the baker and the small supermarket....quite an excursion. While we were there we had lunch at the local riverside cafe....a dozen fresh oysters, calamari, chips and a kg of prawns to go!

Overlooking the Norman River

Fabulous

This is proving an excellent place for seafood...we have had several feeds of local, freshly caught barramundi...delicious. So we have been really able to recharge the batteries here; eating exceptionally well, being lazy, enjoying the wonderful sunsets...just what we need before we hit the road again and most likely hit some inclement weather. We have become accustomed to fine, warm days since leaving Tom Price over 2 months ago.

Looking north at low tide

Another sensational sunset

These bands were caused by some clouds-the vertical post is a channel marker.