29th Aug - Maintenence Day

No particular plans - again. But the mail should be in by 1600... So after a morning walk, it's a good day for pre-flighting the bus... and car! All good! After that it's time for a serious shower - to get the soot and grease off, and have my every 3-4 days shave. Don't like the salt and pepper beard. Maz doesn't like beard at all, but I can't be bothered shaving everyday - since I don't have to.

Later on it's into 'town' for the mail. Today's presents are a pair of new baskets for the slideout pantry. Decided that a third shelf would fit and be useful - and they come in pairs!!! So the other basket will go on the aircon duct behind the driver, as a book shelf! Have drill... will drill!

Also received a spare anode for the water heater. The HWS has had all sorts of water through it and has been on 240VAC mostly. So when I look, I will have a replacement.

More in line with 'presents' is a pair of digital wall thermometer/hygrometer... and clock, for inside and outside the bus. 30mm high LCD numbers; and now they are batteried up they are within 0.1 degree and 1%, pretty good.

But the satellite CAM and card have not arrived, damn. Hopefully Friday's mail truck...

Anyway it's grilled chicken and homemade Ceasar Salad, and maybe ABC iView... cheers

28th Aug - Barramundi Discovery Centre

On today's agenda is a tour of the Barra Discovery Centre, at the far end of town... It is primarily a fish breeding organisation, and was started by the local commercial fishermen to keep Barramundi stocks up  in anticipation of more recreational fishermen having access to the Gulf on new sealed roads... It is staffed by volunteers and supported by the local industries. Good stocks of fish to encourage recreational fishing and hence tourists! The area now has 100,000 people a year visiting, up from about 5000 before the sealed roads.

There are 16 strains of Barramundi (or Giant Perch) around the tropical coast of northern Australia. The fish bread here restock several of the local rivers and Lake Belmore near Croydon. Yes the fish in Lake Belmore were all bread in Karumba! Like quite a few fish the Barra's all start out as males, and some - after about 5-7 years change sex. At that point they are about 90cm long, so the breeding fish are big. Hence the size limits for Barra - Minimum 58cm AND maximum 120cm!




The tour starts with a good video of the place at work, unfortunately we are in the off season. The Barra need a water temp of 31 degrees and the right moon cycle.... to get in the mood! We can see, and feed the breeding stock, however. Tried to get a photo, but the strike is too quick. I did get it on movie though. They have no teeth. They strike with a quick suck, yes they suck the food in! And what a racket that makes. No one lost a finger either...


Anyway once they have fertilised eggs they put them in big tanks to hatch, then out in one of the big ponds to grow into fingerlings.

But, at 25mm or so they graduate from eating zooplankton, to meat. And since there are only other Barra in the ponds, they would eat each other. So at 25mm they are harvested and taken to various spots in the rivers and the lake, where they have some cover. They harvest the fingerlings by slowly draining the pond, accumulating the little fish in the gutter at the bottom, and scooping them out!

Too slow the fish is gone

They also breed some Sooty Grunters , a smaller Perch. Interesting place. Would be fascinating in the summer when they are breeding...

But when the water temp is 31+ the air and humidity is unfit for me!







  

27th Aug - Monday first day of the working week...

The screw-up stands for the bus are waiting at the post office, beauty! They look just the job, and have found an engineering shop to add the 'tongues' to the mounting spigots. $60 later we have another 4 stabilisers for the bus.

  

Also stock up with my drugs for the coming months, via our new friends the local pharmacists. 

The last bit of our bread has gone mouldy so it's for the critters. The birds, all sorts have a field day out the back - including dozens of Black Kites -big birds, some with greater than metre wingspans!

We have decided to stay 'til Saturday the 1st, so we will be travelling the Matilda Highway to Cloncurry over the weekend... and the mail only comes into Karumba on Mon, Wed and Friday - at about 3PM. There are still a few mail articles on the way...

26th Aug - Sunday, day off..

Big walk before the heat - down to the market at the Sunset Tavern. Bought a pair of (fishing) knife sheaths for our smaller and very sharp kitchen knives...
Hot day - pool in the afternoon.
Then visited Mark and Julianne to procure a couple of stubbie holders. Had a good visit; lovely couple. Then put the stubbie holders to use...

25th Aug - Karumba Sunset Cruise

20 over night heading for 35 (again) today. 

As long as there is a breeze, it's fine.

And the breeze is reliable...

The Leg...

Have been tinkering. You may remember we had our awning smacked down at Cooktown August last year. The gust compressed the leg which was well anchored to the ground. The telescopic leg is held only by a plastic friction nut and the force exceeded the friction (torque x coefficient, I guess). Anyway I found a brilliant plan, which cannot fail... I have drilled some holes in the outer section of each leg to accommodate a 4mm R pin above the inner piece of the leg; so it cannot slip down! Thought about a matching hole in the inner but tiedowns take care of any upward gust...

Now we are spending more time outside, midges and Aeroguard notwithstanding. I have installed some weatherproof 12V sockets (cigarette and DIN/Merit) on the outside near the door. I have some more for the other end of the awning 'room'. Really convenient to have the iPad, Macbook on charge and the 3rd TV powered. The extra TV fits into a low profile VESA mount between the external speakers... but lives inside...

Karumba Town ramp

This evening we are booked on the Sunset Cruise with Croc and Crab Tours. Mark and Julianne Grunske come highly recommended. We are to turn up at the boat ramp at 4:45. We are first up... and what lovely friendly people. They are professional fishermen and the tours/cruise has only been going for five years. Mud crabbing is there 'real' business. They can ship live gulf mudcrabs to anywhere in Oz! See www.mudcrabsdirect.com.au 

Barra boat

The cruise heads up the Norman River to Karumba town to pick up three more passengers. The local pharmacists, as it happens... I will see them Monday for something for my bites.

Mark explains bout Karumba's history and current industries. First off is the prawn fishing: Green Prawns for a shortish season then Banana Prawns (in the Gulf) for several months in the wet. They may net up to 10 tonnes in one go! and tie off the nets to only land a tonne or so on the deck at a time for processing...

Then there is the fin fishing industry, mostly for Barramundi. The accomodation and processing boats go out (up the river) for a while, with the net fishing being done in small tinnies... not many around at the moment. 

Drive-on barge for Weipa etc

Then there is the live cattle export industry... and where the limitations of the port kick in. The Norman river is fairly deep - 10 metres, but the mouth is not - about 5m... and the marked and occasionally dredged channel into the Gulf extends for 15KM from the river mouth. Most of the Gulf is actually very shallow (say 6 M for a long way out...). There are massive rivers emptying into the Gulf every 15-20 KM so a massive flushing occurs in the wet season (Dec-Feb).

Century Mine plant and barge

The other major activity is the Zinc (and occasional Lead) export from Century Mine (near Lawn Hill NP). The ore is conveyed 304KM as slurry in a pipeline (I wonder if the use Warman Wier pumps, hey Richard). The ore is dried and loaded on a big flat-bottomed barge 5000 tonnes at a time (and $1m a load) and then re-loaded on a bulk ore carrier moored 25km out to sea. the barge does one trip a day; out on the hight tide and back on the low. Oh, forgot to mention that Karumba has only one tide (one high/one low) per day... Takes typically 8-9 days to load a ship (so $8-9 million...)

First Jabiru - Black headed Crane

So now it is down river past Karumba Point and off into the setting sun. The food and drink is being organised. Fresh-cooked prawns, marinaded Queenfish, fabulous fruit platter, and wine and beer - with a complimentary monogramed Stubbie holder or wine glass. We are about 4-5km out at 1830, which is sunset. So we hang about a little while then back to Karumba Point at about 7PM. A fun interesting and entertaining couple of hours... Excellent hosts!

Karumba Point and the Sunset Tavern

"Home' just in time to see the Swans robbed by the Hawks... and we have about had it! 

22nd-24th Aug Karumba Point

The heat has finally caught up with us, the last few days and the next week maybe - 20 overnight, 35 max in the afternoon... and 65% humidity... and the frigging sandflies got me! Then moved on to Maz. The QLD made Bushmans repellant attracts them! We have bought some Aeroguard and Off, and are soon going to the Karumba Chemist to get me some anti-histamines and some anti-itch. Sandfly bites are driving me crazy (er).

Spent some time in the last few days trying to get the VAST TV to work... not good enough signal! The receiver and antenna get Optus Aurora okay (the unscambled channels), but the VAST signal is apparently weaker. I have re-arranged the power (installed new switches) so that I can turn the satellite dish and receiver, The VAST decoder, and the from TV on/off separately - and have also connected the cooling fans to the switches... It's hot in that top cupboard. Whilst I continue to work on VAST, I have ordered a Conditional Access Module (CAM) and Aurora Smartcard to insert in the satellite receiver/controller, more money $200! But will have TV again. Not that we really miss it... but the dish must work!

Had a sunset meal at the tavern on Wednesday evening - fish of course, and a nice wine... By the way at Normanton Bottleshops cannot sell any cask wine, and have only recently been able to sell bottles of wine. In Karumba (where the population is different) they are limited to 2 litre casks. Can't see how that limitation helps the 'target customers'!

Skipped the sunset last night... but will go to the beach tonight with a cold drink, camera and lots of Aeroguard - after a trip to the pool!!

Tomorrows plan is a Sunset cruise with prawns salad and cold drinks... 'Til then here are a couple of pix of Wednesday's sunset.

Karumba Point

Where we are is 8km from Karumba - and not far from the airfield... Karumba Point is its own little fishing and touristy entity. At 1000 this morning there were more than 80 boat trailers parked at the nearest boat ramp. There are two more ramps nearby...
We like it here, so have extended our stay until 30th. We have cruises and fishing and crabbing to do... and it is 29 degrees today, already.

21st Aug - Croydon - Normanton - Karumba!!!

The plan is to check out and shop at Normanton. Don't know what to expect, but know that Karumba has supplanted Normanton as the 'port' for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Normanton is many KM up the Norman River from the real Gulf... Karumba is at the mouth. 

Aside from finding a grog shop and grocer... we need a photo with Krys... or at least his replica... 28 feet of croc pororsus.

So expensively shopped up a bit it's off to Karumba which is what we really want to see and experience. The blue dot on the Earth Photo is our site at the Karumba Point Sunset CP.

So we have found the pub - 300m walk

We have found the beach - 100m walk

And we have found the sunset...

20th Aug - Croydon

Well we decided to stay another night at Croydon. Nice cheap clean convenient CP, and promises to be interesting looking around. So today is exploring... Many historic buildings ar in situ, a few have been re-located but nearly all are open everyday, with various historical displays. 

The journey starts at the historical/information centre/library. Brief video to start and lots of info boards then it's a walk... around two blocks initially...

This Butcher closed in 1983

Court and Sergeants house

The Courtroom provides an audio re-enactment of a trial of a woman for Drunk & Disorderly... very blue, very funny... Except that the lesson is that she got two months for D&D and a local Chinese farmer got the same for supplying his workers with opium ( to keep them turning up) Drug dealing and D&D same sentence in 1902

If the case goes really badly...
These are vintage coffins (unused)

If the case does not go well

Last Pub of 38. Continuous license since 1887

Community Hall still has movie projectors

Old Hospital Mens Ward... now community resource.

Original station for the Gulflander (rebuilt with steel frame) 

General Store continuous operating since 1885

Hot day!!! at Lake Belmore

Lake Belmore 5km over a ridges from Croydon

View of Croydon on the way back from Lake Belmore

End of a busy day at Croydon...

19th Aug - Georgetown

Out of Bedrock Village, Mt Surprise by about 0830, no hurry, but all around us packing up has woken us early-ish. We have no particular plan.

More roadworks and single strip road. Although biggest wins is the rule, we get half off for oncoming traffic - when it is safe to do so: smooth bitumen edge and solid shoulder, not too much camber... You have to drive at a speed that you can slow enough to get safely off the bitumen - 'cos the rad trains don't slow or move. The bus has some cred, but you really don't want 100 wheels in the rocks and gravel going past  at 100KPH...

We are eventually at Georgetown - all 8-10 blocks. Top up the fuel and drive through the block to the seriously renowned Ted Elliot Mineral Collection - TerrEstrial. Seniors price is $9. The exhibition starts with a video about the collector. The collection was bought by the Etheridge Shire and housed in the custom building. It is absolutely worth the time and effort.

Here are just a few pix...

 After a couple of hours we are back on our way to Croydon, which we hear is more interesting. The CP is very clean, tidy and spacious. we are in for at least one night.

We have only done a couple of hundred KM but even Honey has had enough for the day...