About Karumba

Karumba is a fishing destination and industrial port on the banks of the Norman River where, each winter, anglers from all over Australia arrive to try their luck in the fish-rich waters of the Gulf. Once it was nothing more than a small, sleepy outback town. In recent years it has evolved into two interconnected, but quite separate, towns. There’s the “commercial-industrial centre” with its wharves, barramundi farm, prawn processing plant and MMG Century Mine loading facility. It has little interest for tourists. Then there is the “tourist centre” with a four-star motel, caravan parks, cafes, the Sunset Tavern with its views across the mouth of the Norman River, and there’s the justly famous Mud Crab and Crocodile tour. (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).

Karumba was on our “places bucket list”. W were not too sure what we’d find here but “just had to have a look”. Not disappointed at all with our choice.

In 1937 Karumba became a refueling point for Qantas and BOAC flying boats travelling from Australia to London. During World War II the town was an RAAF base for Catalinas flying into New Guinea, Timor and Indonesia. Parts of the infrastructure still exist today.

It was a wild old town back in the 1970’s when there were over 40 prawning trawlers operating from Karumba. The local pub was known as the Animal Bar which was pretty wild. They say that everything had to be bolted down even the ashtrays, so it couldn’t be used in the many pub brawls that occurred there. Today it is still home to extensive prawn, mud crab and the barramundi fishing fleets.

Karumba Caravan Park

There were 2 main choices for caravan parks in Karumba – Karumba Point Tourist Park OR Karumba Sunset Caravan Park (over the road from the Sunset Tavern) – maplink. We selected the 1st one as we’d heard a lot of bad reports about the sunset one, which we soon discovered were incorrect. Well there’s always a chance of staying there on our next trip.

Karumba Sunsets at the Tavern

There’s one place that you must pay a visit to experience an awesome sunset and that’s The Sunset Tavern (Facebook). We paid two visits to the pub to experience the sunset and each time stayed to experience their mouth watering grilled Barramundi.

1st sunset

2nd sunset

Karumba Barramundi Centre

The recently completed Les Wilson Barramundi Discovery Centre is a fantastic place to visit. You must take the tour of the centre to learn more about the iconic “Barra” (maplink).

Merrisa even attempted to hand feed some of the barra but they weren’t hungry but it was still pretty exciting waiting for a 1 metre long barra to snaffle the tiny squid she was holding above the water.

Kerry D Fishing Charter

You must take a fishing charter out of Karumba when you’re in town. The natural choice has to be Kerry D Charters. They have been in business for ages and know all the right spots. Their price was very reasonable too at $140pp for about 4 hours.

Our trip was great with Paul (skipper) & Mick (decky) looking after us really well. The fish weren’t all that friendly. The water was just 19 degrees so a bit cool for a great catch but Paul & Mick tried so many spots trying to improve our chances.

We were about 1.5kms from shore and the water depth was about 1 metre on average. Could not believe that it was so shallow.

Merrisa was successful with 2 lovely blue threadfin salmon and I caught 4 catfish (throw back fish).

Sunset Cruise

Karumba’s Croc & Crab Tours run a sunset cruise, so we thought “why not” and booked in for our final night in Karumba.

They begin with a bit of a tour up the Norman River informing us of the history which surrounds the port. They spoke of the cyclones and floods they regularly get, where a young boy once caught a 25kg Barramundi on the main road out the front of his house (half a km from the river). Another was about this massive croc which came out of the Norman River, walked down the main street and settled on the doorstep of a house. They had to get professionals out from Cairns to remove and relocate him.

More history – In 1938 a flying boat base was built in Karumba to provide a refueling point for the Sydney-Singapore legs of the Empire Air Route to Britain. During WW2 the RAAF stationed a fleet of Catalina ‘Flying Boats’ out of Karumba.

Lot’s more info was provided about the town and it’s port. We already knew about the fish & prawn part, but there was also a ship, called Wunma in town which carries Zinc & Lead Ore from the Century Mine 304kms away at Lawn Hill, via a ‘slurry’ pipeline to a Karumba refinery. After processing the Wunma takes the ore out to mother ships for export.

Following the very informative talk about Karumba’s history we set sail for a small sand island to witness yet another brilliant Karumba sunset. Drinks and nibbles on the sand as the sun went down was totally beautiful. Then it was back to the boat ramp to finish up a really nice tour.

Normanton and Georgetown

Leaving Karumba we refueled in Normanton (maplink) at the local BP. It was a bit of a classic experience with 3 old blokes sitting around in dilapidated armchairs next to the fuel pumps, giving advice about travel & life in general – very funny. We checked out some of the historical buildings’ like the Purple Pub (Facebook) and the Burns Philp building (a bit of family history – my mum worked for Burns Philp in Madang PNG in the early 1960’s)

Then it was off to Georgetown for a couple of nights stay. We decided to stay here as a base for the trip into Cobbold Gorge due to the reported poor road conditions on that leg of our trip. We pulled into the Goldfields Caravan Park (Facebook) and were happy to find out that they have a happy hour every night – nice.

Summing up…

• Accommodation – the Karumba Point Caravan Park is pretty dusty park with lots of “rules”
  • Cost per night – $39.00 (@ 25-Aug-2020)
  • Facilities – clean but pretty outdated
  • CP Location – have to drive about 3 kms into town (maplink)
  • Our rating/score – 6/10
• Was it a nice town to visit? – yes – a bucket list item ticked off
  • Activities & places of interest – plenty to do but you have to look around for it
    • The sunsets from the pub are absolutely fantastic
    • Barramundi Centre is great – plenty to see & learn about the famous “Barra
    • “Kerry D fishing charter was fun – only $80 per head
    • Sunset Cruise? – take it or leave it
  • Tourist info centre? – 149 Yappar Street, Karumba (website)
  • Would we return? – no – been there & done that but still totally recommend it as a must do location
  • Overall Score – 8/10
• Summing up – Loved our stay here and made some really great friends too.

With all of the kerfuffle with Covid down in Victoria we decided we may as well extend our adventures and do a quick trip up to the nethermost point of Australia and visit Cape York. With a bit of planning and a lot of phone calls we decided on a 2 stop leg up from Cooktown with 3 nights staying ‘at the tip’ and then repeating the same 2 stop leg for our return.

We decided to leave our caravan behind in Cooktown (as we did not want to destroy it on the Cape York roads) and found a lovely guy called Nicko (the seafood seller) who stored it for us on his property for $5/day – far better than paying $49/day in the caravan park.

Trip up the Cape

1st leg – Cooktown to Coen

Our new “best friend” Nicko gave us a tip on which way to go on the first leg so we’d miss the worst parts of the famous Telegraph Track. We followed them pretty well, using our new Heima map book (thanks to our son Brendan for the fathers day present), but we missed the turn-off at Lotus-bird Lodge (no bloody signs!) and ended up at Musgrave (maplink). We were then on the famous track and it shook the bejeevers out of us all the way to Coen.

Booked into the Coen Guesthouse for a 1 night stay. Went to the pub for dinner and then were treated to an absolute delight with a musical presentation by 2 young performers using a Cello and Violin about Australian bird calls. I know it sounds a bit strange but it was absolutely magical.

2nd leg – Cohen to Bramwell Station

After being battered and shaken along 227km of the famous Telegraph Track Development Road (maplink) it was lovely to finally arrive at Bramwell Station Tourist Park for another 1 night stay. We met Ken the boss and he “upgraded” us from a Donga to a room with an en-suite – wow!

Dinner that night was at the free flowing air dining room (no walls here) as we were given a history talk about Bramwell Station from Ken, the owner, which was quiet amazing.

Fruit Bat Falls

We took a short diversion of the PDR to check out Fruit Bat Falls. It was an easy track in to find this beautiful oasis which left no doubt that it was time for a swim to wash off the dust (maplink).

Jardine River Ferry Crossing

Arrived 20minutes too late to catch the Jardine River Ferry as the crew knock off for lunch between 12:00 & 1:00pm. The queue for the ferry grew and grew. You could purchase a ticket either as it closes for lunch too. Finally paid our $100 return fee, jumped in the car and were about the 5th crossing before we headed off again towards Bamaga & then Seisia

Our destination – Seisia

After another 212km shaking and rattling trip we arrived at the Seisia Holiday Park and checked into our accommodation for the next 3 nights.

Well, at $250 per night you’d expect something special but it was quite the opposite. This was all we could find so decided to make the most of it. We were given the “lodge” which sleeps 8 people so really cannot complain.

I even discovered a green ant nest in the tree right next to where I parked our car. These are the same sort of ants I got covered in and seriously bitten after tripping into a hibiscus plant when I was a kid living in Madang, New Guinea – I have always tripped over things!

Seisia Sunset

One of the advantages of staying here is supposed to be the brilliant sunsets. Well, for the first 2 nights there was total cloud cover, so no sunset photos.

Then, on our last night we ventured down to the beach and wallah – a sunset! This young kid called Jackson wandered over to check out our photos and was so impressed he pleaded for me to take his photo – so I did (check him out below – cute kid).

Walk to the tip of Cape York

Today saw us taking the walk to the northernmost tip of the Australian mainland – the main reason for us coming here.

Another dusty drive with heaps of red dust from the large number of vehicles (99% were Toyota) heading the same way as us on the way to Pajinka (indigenous name for the tip).

There were soooo many people at the tip that you have to queue up for “that photo”, including some blokes who all got their gear off for a cheeky photo. There were even dogs doing the walk too.

It was also really (really very) windy with hands on hats so they weren’t blown all the way to PNG.

Punsand Bay

It was then off to Punsand Bay for lunch (maplink). Lovely spot right on the beach with beautiful white sands. A couple of beers, a burger and salt & pepper calamari sure filled the spot after the walk out to the tip.

On the way back to Seisia we called into the Croc Shop and picked up a “I walked the tip” singlet to replace the Bintang singlet (which Merrisa hates)

Thursday Island Day Trip

You just have to visit Thursday Island (TI) when up on the “tip” – everyone we met on our travels were telling us this.

So we headed off to catch the Pedell’s Ferry (seniors are half price – woohoo) for a 1 hour 10 minute trip from the Seisia wharf.

Included in the fare was a 1 hour bus tour of the island, so we took advantage of this. The only disappointing aspect was the three museums (a “must see” on TI) were all closed due to the Covid19 Pandemic. So it was shorter than normal bus tour followed by lunch at the pub, then back onto the ferry for the return to Seisia. These are some of the things we got to see on our bus tour of TI…

A look around TI

Green Hill Fort

The Green Hill Fort was built in 1891 to defend the top end of Australia from possible Russian attack. The 1885 confrontation between Britain and Russia, which almost resulted in open conflict, galvanised the Australian colonies to jointly fund construction of the fortifications, and these represent an important and uncommon instance of pre-Federation Colonial cooperation on defence in the “national” interest.

An interesting fact we learnt was the fort was decommissioned after World War One and not used in World War Two – but no one told the Japs. The fort was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List in 2008.

The views are fantastic from this location and pretty impressed to find the canons could fire 8 miles out to sea. The original canons are still in place.

TI Cemetery (incorporating the Japanese Cemetery)

Thursday Island Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery. It was established in 1887 and includes the Japanese Cemetery. It contains hundreds of graves, including between 600 and 700 Japanese (mostly pearl-shell divers), entrepreneurs and fortune hunters of all nationalities, Torres Strait pilots, sailors and ships’ passengers drowned at sea, as well as generations of Thursday Islanders.

Return trip from the Cape

After 3 fantastic days checking out “the tip” it was time to turn around and travel the 1,000 plus kilometers back to Cooktown to pick up our caravan from our new mate “Nicko”, then continue on our way south toward home.

We’d heard a lot on our travels up on the Cape about Lockhart River; things like rocks that appear to float on the ocean and the (apparently) world famous Chili Beach, so we naturally headed that way on the way back down from the cape.

So it was off down the PDR (Peninsula Development Road) AKA Telegraph Track over the Jardine River hitting those damn corrugations again..

The Greenhoose – Lockhart River

Bramwell Station was discarded as our first overnight stop (we used it on the way up to the cape) and we booked into The Greenhoose (yes folks a Scotsman came up with the name LOL). Turning off the PDR at Picaninny Plains onto Portland Road (maplink) provided us with our first experience of the famous outback bulldust. In some parts of the first 20kms we probably hit about 20 or more dust bowls where it just covers the car just as if we had driven into water (at a slow speed of course).

Finally reaching our destination at the lovely and basic accommodation we found a green oasis after all of the dust. The people who run the Greenhoose were so welcoming it made the stay even more enjoyable. They also run a little take-away food truck up on the main road so it was pizza for dinner – yummo!

Quintel Beach – Lockhart River

Taking an afternoon drive from the Greenhoose to the town of Lockhart River we found the famous rocks that appear to float on the ocean at Quintel Beach.

These rocks are pretty cool, but didn’t appear to be floating on the water as the tide was not right. Even still it was worth the drive to check them out.

Chili Beach

Leaving the Greenhoose the next morning we took a detour out to see if Chili Beach is as good as it’s cracked up to be. Well, maybe it was the really strong onshore winds or the tides were wrong here too but it was a fail as far as we were concerned. Quintel beach was a much better choice.

The only cool thing we found were the pumice stones littering the beach, which apparently, have come from volcano action in Indonesia.

Heading back to the PDR we basically drove (at about 10km/hr) into a bull-dust hole that totally covered our car so much that we had to put the wipers on the clear the windscreen.

Continuing down the PDR

Returning to the PDR we then reached Coen for another overnight stay at the same guesthouse we stayed in on the way up. It was a matter of off to the pub for dinner then bed; nothing exciting.

Hitting the road again the next day, reaching Musgrave Roadhouse we then turned off the PDR and headed down the Lily Dale Road travelling through the Lakefield National Park to reach the Laura pub for lunch. Then it was back to Cooktown, pick-up the van and settle down for a couple of days to clean up our filthy & very dusty car.

A dirty car!

The roads certainly made a mess of the car, both inside and out. Not sure if we will EVER get rid of the red!

Summing up…

• Accommodation…
  • Coen – Coen Homestead Guesthouse for 1 night (website)
    • Cost per night – $160.00
    • Facilities – Shared bathrooms – basic
    • CP Location – 37 Regent St Coen (maplink)
    • Our rating/score – 5/10 – somewhere to lay your head
  • Bramwell Station – Bramwell Tourist Park, Shelburne (website)
    • Cost per night – $110.00 – Donga Room
    • Facilities – Shared bathrooms – basic
    • Location – Off the PDR (maplink)
    • Our rating/score – 6/10
  • Seisia – Seisia Holiday Park for 3 nights (website)
    • Cost per night – $250.00 – bungalow (sleeps 8)
    • Facilities – not too bad – self contained bathroom & kitchen etc
    • Location – 6 Koraba Rd, Seisia (maplink)
    • Our rating/score – 7/10 (a great location BUT bloody expensive)
  • Lockart River – The Greenhoose for 1 night (website)
    • Cost per night – $150.00
    • Facilities – Donga with an en-suite
    • Location – 161 Lockhart River Rd, Lockhart River (maplink)
    • Our rating/score – 8/10
• Were they nice places to visit?
  • Coen was OK – nice pub with great pizzas
  • Bramwell station was a bit of a rip-off, but a necessary stop to rest
  • Seisia was great but would have been good to take our own tent or swags
  • The Greenhoose was fantastic – owners are really nice people
• Activities & places of interest – plenty to do at Seisia but the other places were really just transit points
• Would we return? – probably not – Cape York was a bucket list which is now ticked off

About Mareeba

Mareeba, an important regional service centre, is the largest town on the Atherton Tablelands. It lies at the heart of the tableland’s agricultural activities and is surrounded by coffee plantations, mango and paw paw farms, avocado farms, macadamia nut plantations as well as sugar cane fields and orchards specialising in pineapples, bananas and cashews (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).

After the big clean-up of our car in Cooktown it was off to the town of Mareeba and checking into a farm stay called Ringers Rest for a few days.

Ringers Rest

Ringers Rest is an absolutely top spot to camp for a few nights. Only $10 per night to stay – no power or water, but we’re pretty self sufficient anyway. Located about 6kms SE from Mareeba it’s easy to find (maplink)

Dave, who ran the place, was an absolute blast. He was a true bushman and had so many stories; like…

• the time he broke his leg saving a young girl from being trampled by a runaway bull. He fixed it by wrapping it tightly with heaps of gladwrap
• he was bitten by a Taipan snake and he sucked the poison out and survived
• he has survived out in the bush for so long, living on bush tucker, that he is basically immuned to anesthetics and wakes up during surgery, even after having 7 doses
• … and the stories went on for about 30 minutes – and we were only checking in at the gate LOL

Here’s some photos from around the Ringers Rest camp…

The sunsets at Ringers Rest were pretty cool too…

Mareeba Museum

Behind the Mareeba Visitor Centre is a pretty cool Heritage Museum about the town and it’s history. It’s worth taking an hour or two to check it out.

Granite Gorge Park

About 17kms SW of Mareeba (maplink) is a park by the name of Granite Gorge. If I were coming through this way again it would be a toss-up between here and Ringers Rest to camp for a few days. $13 per head to enter and explore the park.

Summing up…

• Accommodation – Ringers Rest Campground (website)
  • Cost per night – $10.00 (@ 5-Oct-2020)
  • Facilities – a long walk to the toilets – would be crowded when a wedding is on – 1 mens & 1 ladies dunny
  • CP Location – 277 Fichera Rd, Mareeba (maplink)
  • Our rating/score – 7/10
• Was it a nice town to visit? – Yes – lots to see & do
  • Activities & places of interest – Would want to stay at the Granite Gorge Park next time as there are heaps of walks in the gorge
  • Tourist info centre? – 345 Byrnes St, Mareeba (website)
  • Would we return? – maybe
  • Overall Score – 7/10
• Summing up – it was a great stay. The guy who mans the camp’s entry gate loves to chat & it took us about 30 minutes to check in – 1 minute to pay & 29 minutes to hear his life story; a great character.

About Atherton

Atherton, at the heart of the Atherton Tablelands, is a substantial and attractive service town. Today, apart from the very unusual Crystal Cave and the Art Deco Barron Valley Hotel, most of the attractions are at the edges or beyond the town. The unusual Tolga Bat Hospital, the Hou Wang Temple and the many parks, lakes and unusual volcanic formations which are such an integral part of the Atherton Tablelands experience and beyond the town’s centre and the intense rich, red volcanic soils of the area, which have been estimated to be over 30 metres deep, have been used to produce tobacco, maize, potatoes, peanuts, macadamia nuts and avocados (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).

Lake Eacham accommodation

On our way north we stopped off for a one night stop in Yungaburra (see post) and we planned to stay in the same caravan park on the way back down; but it was booked out! So we hurriedly searched for another place to stay and found Lake Eacham Tourist Park and wow were we lucky as it was a top spot; only 7 powered sites set in bushland (maplink).

We used this as our base to explore the famous Atherton Tablelands region. These photos of the caravan park have been sourced off the web (as we forgot to take any!)…

Lake Eacham

Located approx 500 metres from our campground the Lake Eacham features a beautiful 3 km walk around it’s perimeter. We discovered some turtles at one point plus two gigantic Kauri Pines, each were about 6 metres in diameter.

Malanda Falls

Malanda Falls are located right in the small town of Malanda. These falls are really beautiful with a fantastic tiled entry board created by local indigenous artists.

Yungaburra Platypus

The town of Yungaburra has a platypus viewing platform on the edge of town, over Peterson Creek. So off we travelled and there they were – we saw several of these elusive creatures drom the platform and then more along the walking trail on the opposite side of the main road. Really cool little animals who can swim faster than expected.

Yungaburra Curtain Fig Tree

The Curtain Fig Tree is a heritage-listed tree and is one of the largest trees in Tropical North Queensland. It’s one of the best known attractions on the Atherton Tableland just outside of Yungaburra.

Photographs don’t really do this magnificent tree any real justice. You have to visit it to take in the true awesomeness of this tree.

Lake Barrine

Lake Barrine Tea-house was lovely place to have lunch on our last day in the Tablelands. Sitting in this heritage listed tea-house with views over Lake Barrine was very calming and the food was fantastic.

Lake Barrine, part of Crater Lakes National Park, is a maar – a crater lake formed by two massive volcanic explosions.

Herberton Historical Village

A day out to the Herberton Historical Village is a “must” when you are visiting the Atherton Tablelands region (maplink). This attraction has been put together over the years by very conscientious volunteers and the amount of memorabilia is outstanding.

We spent the day exploring the village with our new travelling buddies, Paul & Estha along with their wonder-dog, NiggaBella.

The Village currently has over 60 original buildings that date from Herberton’s foundation years. Walking through the Village, we were given a sense of being in a real township complete with chemist, bottle collection, school, bank, grocer’s store, frock salon, toy shop, mechanic, jail and more.

There was sooo much to see I may have taken tooo many photos. Take your time to check them out as it really shows how much there is to see here. I took 156 photos but cut them back as best I could to 47. Enjoy…

Summing up…

• Accommodation – Lake Eacham Tourist Park (website)
  • Cost per night – $29.00 (@ 7-Oct-2020) we stayed for 4 nights
  • Facilities – pretty basic, but very clean and they fit into the bush style campground
  • CP Location – 198 Lakes Dr, Lake Eacham QLD (maplink)
  • Our rating/score – 8/10
• Was it a nice town to visit? – Yes
  • Activities & places of interest – There is so much to do in the Atherton Tablelands that we could have stayed a couple of weeks
  • Tourist info centre? – Silo Rd &, Main St, Atherton (website)
  • Would we return? – YES – This is a definite destination to go to
  • Overall Score – 9/10
• Summing up – A fantastic little caravan park and we met some really fantastic people and saw some great attractions.

There were so many people we met on our travels who said “you must go to Paronella Park“, so we did. What a great spot with so much history.

Located on Mena Creek (maplink) it was originally opened in 1935 by José Paronella whose dream was to build castle, a picnic area by the Mena Creek Falls, tennis courts, bridges, a tunnel, and wrapped it up in an amazing range of 7,500 tropical plants and trees. He even harnessed the waterfall for his electricity by building Australia’s 2nd hydro electric system in 1933.

A brief history

José Paronella arrived in Australia from Catalonia in Spain, in 1913. For the next 11 years he worked, cutting sugar cane initially, then purchasing, improving, and reselling cane farms. In 1924 he returned to Spain and married Margarita in 1925. The trip back to Australia was their honeymoon.

José first saw this 13 acres of virgin scrub along Mena Creek in 1914. He eventually purchased it in 1929 for £120 and started to build his pleasure gardens and reception centre for the enjoyment of the public.

The earliest structure, the Grand Staircase, was built to facilitate the carrying of the river sand to make the concrete.

First they built a house to live in, then they started on the Castle itself.

Apart from the house, which is made of stone, all of the structures were constructed of poured, reinforced concrete, the reinforcing being old railway track. The concrete was covered with a plaster made from clay and cement, which they put on by hand, leaving behind the prints of their fingers as a reminder of the work they had done.

Staying at Paronella

We camped in the “Paddock” behind the Mena creek Hotel and had a short walk over the road to the park. Plenty of room with power provided but using our own water (from our van’s tanks).

After checking in to the park we drove down to Etty Beach to see if we could spot our first cassowary. With none on the beach (where they are supposed to be) we found one on the drive out LOL.

Night tour and light-show

Our 1st experience was the night-time light-show which was really impressive.

Daytime tour

This is the best part of visiting Paronella Park. The tour takes you through the park and our guide provided an extensive overview of it’s history and how much effort José Paronella put into developing his dream.

They also told us the number of times the park was devastated by cyclones and wild weather and how it was lovingly rebuilt.

Summing up…

• Accommodation – If you’re lucky you may be able to pre-book a site in Paronella Park (pretty hard to get in at short notice) or you could book into the “overflow” behind the Mena Creek Hotel (website).
  • Cost per night – $22.00 (@ 11-Oct-2020)
  • Facilities – none but may have changed since we were there – we had to use the toilets in the pub
  • CP Location – 1671 Innisfail Japoon Road, Mena Creek (maplink)
  • Our rating/score – 6/10
• Was it a nice town to visit? – not much in the town. Great pub meals
  • Activities & places of interest – just Paronella Park
  • Would we return? – no – been there done that
  • Overall Score – 8/10
• Summing up – Paronella Park is totally worth the visit as it’s truly a wonderland of mystical constructions and amazing stories of it’s origins. Make sure you take at least one of the tours – we did both.