We are now entering our 3rd week at Normanton, a small country town located on the Norman River in the Gulf country of NW QLD, approx 2090 klms NW of Brisbane, 850klm W of Cairns & Townsville & approx 400klms N of Cloncurry. In the main street of Normanton there is a full scale model of a crocodile that was shot in 1957 just downstream from the town centre, it was measured at 8 .63mts -WOW! I hope we don’t see any of his relatives while we are here.
We drove here from Kununurra, managed to cross all the state borders before they closed but we were travelling to job. We both working for Hawkins Transport (a very large company) & working lotz, we do deliveries to Karumba 5 days a week as well as many deliveries to Normanton from Carirns, Townsville, Brisbane & Mt.Isa numerous times a week.
We were told we had what a few people call a ‘morning glory’ sky – a certain type of cloud formation which if you have 3 in a row – it rains. Well……..I don’t know if we had 3 days of morning glory but we did get rain, approx 20mls, drizzled all day – beautiful (that was my thought anyway).
A few days ago when Peter & I finished work 2pm, we drove to Karumba in our ute, the police pulled us up 5klms out of Karumba, made Peter blow in the bag & wanted to know WHY we were driving around, we said that as the new freight managers in Normanton I needed to know where the deliveries were made in Karumba – all good, it was true. We also managed to buy some awesome fish & chips which we devoured at the beach – WOW! fantastic feed & beautiful vista.
On our drive to Karumba, the wetlands which are still wet are filled with amazing birdlife, hopefully we will get the opportunity to check this out a bit better when we have more time.
To me, Karumba is a fishing village with several prawn, fish & crab companies plus of course the tourism part which at the moment is non-existant but I found it to be a very picturesque place & they make beautiful fish & chips. The golf course was overrun with wallabies but they were masses of them along the roadside as well in the early morning along the roadside.
On the drive back to Normanton we stopped briefly at Walkers Crk, has a causeway which was the old highway, apparently its quite a popular fishing spot, we may have to check it out in the future.
Muttonhole Wetlands are approx 5klms out of Normanton, still has some water at this stage. but the LILIES are so beautiful & they are in all the water courses from here to town.
We finished lunch time today so we went for a drive down ‘old croydon road’, to try our luck at fishing, no joy with fish but it was lovely, saw some cute moo’s. We will try again with the fishing as there are many tracks off the road which all head to the river.
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