Oz Blog #10 Normanton, Karumba, Croydon and Undara.

After leaving Nardoo Station we headed North to Normanton. This statue is Krys the Croc, the biggest croc confirmed ever captured in the world. She was shot downstream in Normanton in July 1957 by Krystina Pawlowski, a renowned crocodile shooter, and the statue is a true representation of the croc’s size and might. Krys measured 28’ 4” (8.63 metres) and is the largest authenticated crocodile ever shot. It was estimated that she weighed in at over 2 tons.

We also went out to the Normanton Rodeo ground as we had heard of a local craft group who specialised in pottery, glass work and mosaics.

Luckily these were too big and quirky to take back to NZ, 

but we did buy a plate - that blue one with the black shaky band through its middle like a seismograph.

This is a photo of the phenomenon known as the “Morning Glory” which only happens in two places - the Normanton area, and in South America. This only happens very rarely (perhaps twice a year) so we weren’t able to see it.

We did a day trip to see the sea at the Gulf of Carpentaria at Karumba just up the coast of the western lower part of Cape York.  

It’s a good place to see the sun go down over the sea and our first place on this trip to do this.

This is not a good place for a swim as they do have Salties (salt water crocodiles) in this area.

Tho this guy doesn’t seem to mind getting into the water.

No matter where I go in Australia I always see something I’ve never seen before, which is very interesting.

Unicycles allowed .....except 1950 Scotsmen!

Just over the horizon may be Borneo or Bali.

I wait for the sunset and do some whistle practise.

Karumba is quite a little tourist spot with many caravan parks and also a good fish’n’chip shop, so what’s to do but watch the sun go down with barramundi and chips, and jump for joy all at the same time. 

There were a lot of tourists also parked up on the beach to view this sunset.

5 minutes after the sun dipped into the sea all the other tourists disappeared, while we just sat for another 20 minutes watching and taking photos of nature’s beauty.

We also visited the Barramundi Visitor Centre in Karumba, what an impressive new building. 

My word, I had no idea that it’s such a legendary fish with massive significance to this area’s prosperity.

 I just had to take this shot, I haven’t got over the colour of the soil in Australia, and yes it’s everywhere and colours everything red.

Leaving Normanton Christine took the Gulflander train, while I drove the car and van 5hrs to Croydon. This  railway line is of a different gauge (3ft6in) to all the other rail lines in Australia, therefore it is a separate line which was used for servicing the gold strikes in Croydon,  Normanton and its surrounding areas. The locals say it runs from nowhere to nowhere as it is not connected to any other Queensland lines.

This is the mail being delivered by train driver. The Station gate beside the railway line is 30km from the homestead. 

Mail is also picked up on the return journey if the flag is raised.

The railway was built to transport gold and people from Croydon to the port at Normanton.

At its peak it moved over 10,000 people each year. 

Some spare wheels outside, a bit too heavy to pinch as a souvenir.

I met Christine in Croydon which turned out to be a lovely little town full of history, with a great info centre called the True Blue Info Centre. There are a lot of steel sculptures all around the town, built by Artist Blacksmith Hans Pehl. Croydon was once 8 km long and had 32 pubs. The gold strike was an open seam type of gold but it ran out fairly quickly, and Croydon returned to just servicing the cattle stations in this area.

Below is a well used gold mould .

Hans’s sculptures really do give an arty flavour to this little town.




 

They certainly didn’t have this sort of activity in Croydon in the 1890s.

We moved further East to the Lava tubes at Undara. This is a cattle station still owned by the Collins family for 6 generations from 1862. who realised the tourist potential and uniqueness of the geology and turned it into a tourist attraction.

The Undara Lava Tubes were formed when 23 cubic kilometres of lava from one of the many volcanoes spilled out over the land and travelled along a river bed. The tubes were formed when the outer layer formed a crust which protected the still-molten lava which continued to flow as though it was in a tube or a pipe.

I took the Wind Tunnel tour, while Christine took the Arches tour.

Beck our tour guide from the Cape York region was one of the newer guides, and did a great job.

Believe it or not, this huge mound of rocks and dirt is created by the Bush (or Brush) Turkey for its nest!

The Lava tubes were pretty impressive, I asked why the Aboriginal don’t appear to have used them, it has only recently been found out (in the last two weeks) that they did, because stones that were found in the caves from an other region of Australia.

Undara is also famous for its use of old railway carriages which apparently cost over $1Million to buy in 1980’s.

The word Undara in the Aboriginal language means “a long way”.

This unique venue hosts two annual events - Opera in the Outback and the Undara Outback Rock and Blues festival.

We only stayed the one night at Undara, in spite of it being a very nice camp (and our neighbours were Kiwis). We were keen to get moving towards the Tablelands.

Christine spotted this coffee sign at Mt Surprise.

This brings blog #10 to a close.

Plenty more up ahead!

Stay safe and free and be creative.

Cheers Jimu & Christine.

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Blog #9 Nardoo Station Part 2 + Lawn Hills Nat Park.

Because there was so much to see, do, and absorb from this experience on Nardoo Station, there just had to be a Part 2.

Here is how we straightened up this particular fence line. Each steel standard, not sure what they call them in Aus but we in NZ call them waratahs, is pulled a little past vertical and the ground rammed by hand to set the fence post upright.  

When the soil is wet after a flood, the soil depth is up to 1 meter deep. The photo below of the tractor stuck just after the last flood, shows just how soft the ground can get.

It becomes very soft and this is why the fences fold, plus the debris of branches and dead trees builds up on the fences and pushes them flat.

Christine attached the chain then signalled when the post was past vertical by sighting the line, while the third person rammed each individual post.

I think we cleared and straightened around 5km of fence in this manner.

Here I am driving the station John Deere...this was fun...fun...fun!

Pete, the boss, using the rammer to set that waratah.

While we were at Nardoo Station there was a partial eclipse of the moon. The stars at night with the full fantastic spread of the Milky Way, were something I never tired of, so now I’m considering getting a swag (for those who don’t know what that is, it’s a roll out tent with mattress for sleeping out completely out under the stars).

One of the major jobs on any station is keeping the water and salt and mineral licks up to the cattle.

Peter has several pumps pulling water out of the river to several huge tanks.

Then solar power is used to pump from those tanks out to lines of troughs.

I see a beautiful plant, Peter sees a weed with all its problems.

The Leichhardt  river, a major river in Queensland, flows through the station towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. In last February’s flood it was 80 kilometres wide where it flowed into the sea!

 We took a day off to explore Boodjamulla National Park.

Lawn Hills Gorge is also called Boodjamulla National Park. It’s north of Mt Isa and very near the Northern Territory border, and therefore quite isolated.
Surrounded by the outback with its dryness, BNP is a haven with water flowing through, with turtles, fish and freshwater crocodiles.

Many people were swimming and I didn’t bring togs...lucky I had underpants on...nobody complained!

I sat under the waterfall and got a neck massage...happy to report nothing missing from freshies!

This is spinifex country, and special to this area.

This (below) is a Ring Tailed Dragon that had no fear of me, and posed in the sun for photos.

On the way back to Nardoo on the major road State Highway 84 we spotted this sign.

The highway becomes a temporary landing strip for planes in emergencies and other such natural disasters.

Back at Nardoo Station Peter had some cattle to pick up on a neighbours property (over an hours’ drive) and we were invited (treated) to ride his cattle road train to go pick them up.

On an outback road...heading outback....

Peter is a storyteller of note!

I took this from inside the yards...Peter followed them up to drive them through the race to the truck.

One of the older cows seized its opportunity to give Peter a rark up and tossed him in the air like he was a matchstick.

She also had a go at him on the ground. Luckily not too much damage was done, it could have been a lot worse, but still he had a swollen face, bruised ribs, sore shoulder, a knee stomped on and various other grazes. In common with the self reliant hardy people of the outback Peter knew to get out into safety and assess the situation. He managed to complete the job of loading the stock and getting back into the driving seat of the truck.

I’m wearing the Geraldine Ukulele festival T shirt (2018) because at the time this photo was taken the 2019 Geraldine Festival was running in NZ.

Last photos of the Nardoo kitchen.



On my right is Jacqui the cook, on my left is Ann the Station owner.

Scotty’s dog just gets in the picture ...amazing how dogs are so like their owners!

So our time at Nardoo Station has come to a close. It was truly a great experience, a real snapshot of Outback station life, wonderful friendly people with an amazing lifestyle. 

Off we headed North towards Normanton, Karumba and Croydon, where more adventures lay!

Till then stay safe, be creative and have fun.

Cheers

Jimu & Christine