Issue 2 June 2019 Brodie’s next 15,000 klm
On th e road again
Gulfland Caravan Park (unpow Normanton was our choice as I wanted to ride the Gulflander, probably Qld’s oldest trains. The caravan park was only $16 for an unpowered site but the amenities were fairly rustic, with the male showers having as much privacy as a football changing room. The town being the hub of the gulf region had a fairly large residential and industrial area but just a few shops to cater to the residents. After the noises the Suzuki had been making I needed to check the oil levels and if anything was loose underneath, I approached the local BP mechanical workshop and he agreed to check it after lunch. When it was on the hoist I checked underneath and he checked the oil levels and we couldn’t find a problem, I asked how much and he said I only charge when I fix something and I couldn’t find anything to fix, so no charge......... it probably took about 20 mins and the use of the hoist and still he wouldn’t accept anything!
A few of the pubs in town
owered section) Normanton
The RM60
The “truck� train known as the Rm60 was built in 1931 based on a french truck, evidently that type of rail vehicle was fairly common fairly common in outback Qld pre Ww11, being cheap to build and repair. After being lovingly restored it is occasionally brought for public trips.We were lucky to be there at the right time to go on a 40 minute round trip and although it had nicely upholstered seats it was a pretty bumpy and slow trip, but still very interesting.
The Gulander
The view from the drivers perspective
The Gulflander runs between Normanton and Croydon, it was established in the late 1800's when Croydon was a major gold town. After the gold ran out the trains still ran but with reduced services till finally in the 70's the started running a return trip once a week. Tourist demand led to 2 hour excursions from Normanton once or twice a week and we did one of those. It was enjoyable but the 2 hours were long enough, I’m my attention span wouldn’t have lasted the 5 hour full trip The tried consisted of a pre war rail motor and two passenger carriages built in the early 1950's.
The Gulf o Kar
Karumba is basically a hotspot fishing destination with people from down south holidaying here for 3 months at a time to indulge there passion. Karumba was also a port for the live cattle trade to Indonesia (not sure if that still happens) As we have no interest in fishing there wasn’t much else to see so after enjoying a huge Barramundi fish and chips, taking in the vista of the Gulf we headed back to Normanton We might have missed stuff as we have lots of friends who love the place, but to us it was a typical seaside fishing village that is quite common on the Australain coast.
of Carpentaria rumba
The Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine
The mine ran for a short time in the 50's and 60's supplying uranium oxide to the UK for their power stations, once the contract was fulďŹ lled the mine closed till the mid 70's when it was used to supply Japan among others for their power stations. At the end of those contracts the mine was decommissioned and virtually everything was sold and removed. Now the township exists as a ghost town with 43 crumbling streets and over 200 concrete slabs are all that remain of this once thriving mining town. The area is all private property but the owners allow it to be used as free camping ground. Although you cant see it in the drone photo, as it was taken in the late morning, there were probably over 100 vans staying overnight.
The mine is about 6klm from the village and due to the deteriorating roads you needed a 4wd (or not care about your own vehicle.) to get to it. The blue water sends gieger counters crazy, but people still swim in it, there the ones that glow at night.
We arrived in Camooweal after a brief stop in Mt Isa, well they did have a McDonalds.. so hotcakes for breakfast and on we went. Camooweal really caters to the travelling public with free water, dump point and a huge area along the riverbank, although in the dry a series of billabongs, which stretches for kilometres. Wikicamp, our free camp bible, suggested to avoid the first section of the free camp as it gets too crowded and move further down river, when we pulled into the first section there was no one there so we set up camp. I flew the drone over the second section and it chocca’s with vans. There was over 100 vans squeezed into that area and here we were with no one closer than 100 metres and that is after a constant stream of vans headed past us heading for the 2nd section ..... no idea how many ended up there or why they had to all cluster together.
Camooweal Qld
That’s us, in the ďŹ rst section and no one near us, but look at the big picture
Bore 41 Barkley Highway NT
Well it happened to us, when we arrived we were the only ones there, then the two motorhomes and caravan parked barely 10 metres from us, just after the photo was taken another two parked right next to us on the other side ... look at the photo there is heaps of room, why park next to us? Now .. whats the problem you say??? ... well Jan’s got an over developed sense of intruding on others, so we had to have the tv so low I couldn’t hear it and talk in whispers so we didn’t disturb them!! while they ran their generators, shouted between vans and generally carried on as if no one else was around.
Sunset, Bore 41
Day break, Bore 41
Banka Banka
a Campground
Banka Banka was our ďŹ rst stop on the Sturt Hwy, heading towards Darwin, we had shopped earlier at Tennant Creek, it having the only supermarket within 300 ks, as Banka Banka carried no supplies. The photo was taken around 11am, by late afternoon there was barely a clear patch of dirt and they were still coming in ... so many people travelling!! That night they had a country and western singer and a campďŹ re ...it was 27 degrees!!, neither was to our taste so it was an early night and an early departure. Well we thought we were early, but by 7am the campsite had cleared...everyone racing for the next spot.
Daly Waters Pub is one of the icons of the Northern Territory, every traveller has to call there ... there is only a pub!! in fact in the last census Daly Waters permanent residents totalled 9. Most days in the season there would be hundreds of people there. Remember I said people left sites early to get a spot at the next one, well we arrived there at about 10.30 and it was almost full, we would have been earlier but we stopped at Dunmarra to try their iconic vanilla slices .. they were huge and great. I use the word iconic a lot but all the little pubs and servo’s delevop something special to bring the customers .. some of them do it reall well. The star meal “barra and steak” is so popular that you have to book and they have several sitting times, although it came highly recommended by our travellings friends I was to much of a cheapskate to pay $70 for two serves of fish and chips.
I think the pub owns every business in town ...they probably own the town. There is some form of entertainment every night, we were fortunate enough to have both the Pitt Family Circus and a country and western duo. We had seen the Pitt Family preforming in Lismore a few years ago, since then they had added another member (2 years old) and the show was a bit more risque .obviously to suit the older ..much ..audience. After the circus show we, not being ones to hang around pubs, went back to the motorhome to cook tea with the country music wafting in the background.
Bitter Sp Matara
prings anka
Mataranka, like a lot of this area, has hot springs bubbling to the surface and with enough quantity to form creeks of hot water, 32 degrees, that flow into the normal rivers. Bitter Springs is one of them, the NT Parks have built paths and access points to the creek and thus it is very popular to jump in and be carried about 300 metres down stream in the hot /warm water and hop out and the steps and do it all again. There is a slight chance of crocodiles, mainly “freshies” but this quite low.... they put foam balls in various places and check for teeth marks as the crocs are quite curious, I found some with teeth marks but they were probably old ones.
About 1200 metres
s from early photos
North Bank Kath
Katherine is the highway compass hub of the NT. north to Darwin, south to Adelaide, east to Townsville and west to Broome. We didn’t do a lot here as we will be staying here again after Darwin, we stayed in the cheapest unpowered park, at $20 a night it wasn’t all that bad. The motorhome needed it’s tyres rotated, we found a McDonalds and bought some beer. Buying the beer was an experience, there were two NT police officers checking id before you were allowed into the bottle shop and then you had to have your id scanned prior to paying for anything..must be an alcohol in this town.
Caravan Park herine
Knotts C Kathe
Crossing erine
Knotts Crossing upstream
Cahills Crossing
Cahills Crossing was going to be the highlight of Kakadu, evidently at high tide the Barramundi fish swim across the crossing much to the delight of the waiting crocodiles. We arrived on the rising tide and there was one big croc about 50 metres upstream, sunning itself on the bank. As we waited for high tide a lot of people started fishing with a few fishes caught, but no more crocodiles. Our attention span ran out about 30 mins before hightide so we took this photo and drove up to Ubirr and spent about an hour looking at the scenery.
This was the sight that greeted us when we returned an hour later. I felt quite disappointed that I had missed the crocs but after asking a few bystaneeders they said none had appeared. It seems they must not eat everyday as we did speak people in the caravan park who said they had seen them feeding. Speaking of the caravan park, we thought it and Kakadu were extremely over priced. A Magnum ice cream around $3.50 most places was $6.00 and this is only 200k from Darwin on a major road ...just a rip o!
Walking down towards the Ubirr location, for us have been the most impressive site ion the Kak
s Ubirr would adu Park
The first rock art we came across, we were following a guided party and they were told this was over 2000 years old and the guide told a story that it was to stop people stealing ..all about a rock being rolled in front of a cave and trapping the thieves ..I must have missed something in the spiel cause I couldn’t get that out of those drawings! She also pointed out the white figure saying he was a white man with shoes they called boss. I think there was some confusion as my knowledge of history doesn’t have white man in this area till around the 1860's.
We climbed to the top of rock and this was the view ... well you will have to turn the page!
Th view from
he wetlands m the escarpment
Some of our other blogs
On th e road again
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