Karumba
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Karumba,
Queensland,
Australia
Saturday, July 12, 2008
July 12th, 3pm
Sunset Caravan Park, Karumba
On the Gulf of Carpetaria. The Savannah Way
Well hello there blog followers!
Since we have left Cairns, we have covered about 1400 kms!! First we went north to Cape tribulation and the Daintree. It was very picturesque. The road was a bit windy and raining all along the ocean. Very pretty, but would have been that much better with sunshine. I guess that is why they call the area a wet rainforest! It rained the whole time we were there, but it was still very pretty. We heard that it is the only place where the rainforest hits the ocean, and we definitly saw it touching! At the campground, they had a few different walks you can do through the rainforest on the property. I'll see if we can get those pictures on here with the blog, as we are using our cell phone as a modem right now while we are in the boonies.
We were up there for about 2 days, and then headed back south and then straight west. And I mean STRAIGHT! At first we went through some "mountain ranges" but then drove on the same straight road for the next 1000 kms. Pretty much the same scenery, grasslands, cows, kangaroos, and very dry red dirt. We stayed at a road side stop close to Ravenshoe. Not much there other than the "grey nomads" and their caravans. I think it is pretty cool when the 3 of us (Keir, Howey and me) pull up among them. And I think they are pretty impressed with our set up! They always come over and ask where we are from, where we are going, etc. Neat little community.
The cool thing with these roadside stops, is that they are FREE and there is no check out time! We can wake up around 8 ish make a very slow breaky, enjoy the coffee, and then pack up and start our long straight drive. Oh have I mentioned how straight it is yet?? hahaha, it's nuts!
Anyways the next day we went to Undara. It is a national park that has the longest lava tubes in the world (I think, don't quote me on that, I didn't finish the geology degree haha) unfortunatly we were a bit too late for the tour through them, which is the only way to see them, so instead we went climbing up to the crater of the volcano. Pretty cool. It was only about 2.5 kms around the top (only!), but nice break from the straight drive. We took a few pictures up there too!
We were going to stay the night there, as they have a campground, and do the tour the next morning, but the campground was fully booked!!! In the middle of nowhere! Crazy! So we just kept driving, to the next road stop, which was about 200kms down the, ahem, road. The sun was going down, which was very pretty BUT that is when those cute little bouncing Kangaroos come out to play! *&$#^#$&*^% stupid animals! Oh sorry, I mean, what I said before. But they are a little stupid. We almost hit 3 or 4 of them. They either are eating the grass on the side of the road, get freaked out and bounce in front of you, or they are hopping across the street at the pace of a turtle for the fun of it. I am thinking they are saying with a lisp of course, " Hey mate, who do you fink you are? I wath here firthst!" We were able to slow down and swerve a bit to miss them, Howey did well, oh and Keir. :) But jeez it was stressful! We did unfortunatley hit 2 birds...and HARD! They just decided to play chicken with us, but really, when there is a 50 meter long road train (REALLY LONG SEMI TRUCK with 5 containers) coming in the next lane, which by the way is a shared single lane, you just keep going straight, and let the bull bar deal with the hit. Kind of a crappy deal for the bird. We got to our overnight stop a little shakey, and said while we were opening a nice cold beer, that we won't drive past 5pm anymore. Not worth it.
The next morning, was another lazy slow going breaky and STRAIGHT on to Karumba! Sounds fancy I know but really quite the opposite. Just a post office, mom and pop grocery store, gas station ($1.95 /liter diesel) a few caravan parks and grasshoppers!! And when I say Grasshoppers, wow! I have never seen so many of them in one area before! There are clouds after clouds of them, and the poor palm trees look like skeletons! When we were driving here at one point keir closed his window really fast and about 5 of them smacked up against the window! I guess they are more like locusts cause they are huge and have wings. Anyways, This place is so busy! We got the last camping spot there was in this area! I guess the nomads come here for months at a time in the "winter" to get away from the "cold", and go fishing. The cool thing is we are right on the ocean. And right on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Pretty neat! But the sad thing is it is hot...not like normally that would be a bad thing, but Crocs are HUGE here! and they are Hungry! Oh and there are sharks, oh and lethal jellyfish...so in other words if it is hot, there is no releif in the water to say the least. (well it would be short "lived" releif. Literally)
So right now, we just folded our fresh laundry off the clothesline, had a game of Skip-bo had a few crackers and cheese, all out of Branston pickle :( and about to go for another walk to "look" at the ocean. Life is pretty good.
Tomorrow we will be heading, in the daylight, to Cloncurry, if we leave early enough. We may stay at Burke and Willis Road House (a gas station). Should be interesting. Maybe we will have a bit of a curve in the road, OR maybe we will be lucky and have a 2 lane road!!! Woooo! That would be cool!
So from the Gulf of Carpentaria, G'day!
We'll write more soon!!!
Miss you all!
Love Kylie and Keir
PS J & J have a good and safe trip to Denmark!
PPS if anyone tries to call us, and you get the vm right away, we are in the BOONIES! Try again in a week or so!! haha
