Over the next 4 days Steve and I covered from Mt Surprise to Burketown along the Savannah Way.
The landscape continued to change along the way with some great views. We passed some big flood plains and a huge river that was totally dry.
The road also changed to one strip of tar which Steve wasn’t expecting. And some idiots don’t know how to share the road!!
First stop was Georgetown. We were recommended to stop here and have a look at The Ted Elliott Mineral Collection. We weren’t disappointed. There were lots of different minerals and gems from all over the world. I restrained myself in the gift shop!
Croydon was our next stop for one night. We flopped out the trailer and went for a walk around the town.
Croydon is considered the heritage capital of the gulf and has a great history which started with the discovery of gold in 1885. It was once a thriving gold mining town of around 10,000 people. Today it’s only 300. Like many gold mining towns it has a rich Chinese heritage.
We took a walk around the heritage precinct. They are the original buildings that are heritage registered. The police station still had the lock up out the back. The other buildings, the court house and the town hall, all contained relics and information about the towns past. The court house was set up with wooden cut outs of people and you pressed a button and it was a reenactment of a court case from Croydon’s wild days.
The heritage walk finished at the Club Hotel. 😜
In its heyday Croydon boasted having 36 pubs!! This one and only little pub is going to be overflowing this weekend because the “rodeo is comin to town!!” As with many of the country town pubs they had some young female backpackers serving, with a couple who’d only been in town 3 days! They’re sure to have fun with the rodeo crowd!!
Croydon was an interesting town. It’s great learning about the history of all little towns along the way.
The next morning we were on our way early to our next stop, Karumba.
On the way a stop was necessary at Normanton. Normanton has a replica of a crocodile shot in the Norman River in 1957 by a woman Krystina Pawlowski. It was 8.63 metres!! It made the Guiness Book of Records as the largest crocodile ever captured. It’s known as “Krys the Savannah King”. It was huge!!
Locals tell the story that there’s another of its size spotted in the Norman River today. 😳
Once at Karumba we checked into Sunset Caravan Park and to my delight had one of the best sites in the park. We were opposite the pool and had two toilets across from us. It was like having an ensuite! 😊
We had barramundi, real prawn cutlets and awesome potato scallops for lunch at Ashes who advertised they had the “best fish and chips in the world “. It was certainly one of the freshest!
In the afternoon we went to the Sunset Tavern to watch the sunset which was amazing! Steve snapped some great shots.
Thanks to Dave Annelzark we went early and had the best seat to watch the sunset. What was also amazing was my dinner of scallops wrapped in bacon! Yummy! (not potato gems David Jacobs😄)
That night we had another camp raider! (We’ve had several!) A cheeky wallaby managed to steal our bread that was up on the bench! When I came out to chase him away (and go to the toilet) he went away but he was back eating the bit I dropped when I returned. He wasn’t really worried at all. So we lost another loaf of bread! Hopefully we’ll learn soon not to leave stuff out.
The following day we were up very early to go on a fishing charter. Kerry D’s!
They rigged us up quickly and away we went. It took me a bit to work the rod. I’m sure the old bloke Tom thought I was special. 😜
The couple on the other side were bringing bream in straight away. (Who by the way were from Beecroft and lived next to family who went to Bps! Emily and Lily Raft?? Small world!)
I moved to the other side and caught my first fish ever! 😊
It was also a bream. After that it went quiet so we moved on to try our luck at mackerel. No luck. Then we moved on a few more times but again no luck. The other couple caught some baby grunter which actually grunt when caught. So I caught my first fish ever and Stevie wasn’t so lucky. 🙁They gave us 3 fish to take home.Stevie cooked them in foil on the BBQ and they were delicious. Never had fish so fresh.
Later that night we watched the Wallabies lose to the Poms. Not happy!! 😁
The next morning we continued along the Savannah Way to Burke Town. We stopped again in Normanton for a few supplies. $21 for 24 bottles of waters! Ouch! Oh well. At least we supported the town.
Along the way we saw Burke and Wills 119th camp.
It’s famous because it was there final camp site, taking 6 months to get here when trying to cross Australia from bottom to top. From the camp they tried to cut through to the gulf but couldn’t pass the mangroves. Running low on supplies they turned back and tried to return home but never made it.
From here we were back on the dirt again with more rivers crossings and a lot of big mud puddles. The area had a lot of rain the night before. We also felt the remotest we’ve felt so far. There was nothing between Normanton and Burketown.
There were also very few cars and caravaners unlike traveling to the tip, as they were sticking to the bitumen and taking the bypass road through Mt Isa.
Further on we crossed the Leichardt River and checked out Leichardt falls.
The landscape was again forever changing from grassy plains to scrub to bare ground.
The bird life is also interesting. We’ve seen lots of eagles enjoying the road kill, flocks of galahs and beautiful cranes. We used the bird book that the kids bought us for Christmas and found out they were Sarus Cranes and that they’ll usually be in a pair.
We finally made it to Burketown. At the entry to town there was Burketown bore. It was an artesian hot bore originally drilled as a water supply but the quality was too poor. Over 100 years of mineral deposits from the water has created a natural sculpture. And no I didn’t put my foot in! 😄
Burketown is only small with a population of about 350, but is the centre for the shire. It once had grander plans when the region was booming, as evidenced by the wide streets throughout town.
We went and found the only caravan park and it was full. 😳. We then checked out the pub which was $125 a night!
So we had some lunch,and tried unsuccessfully to get some petrol (it was Sunday so everything was closed except the pub and the takeaway shop)
Finally we drove to Tiranna Station which was $12 for an unpowered site. And they had petrol too. Perfect.
It was another long day so looking forward to 4 days at Adeles Grove.