20 over night heading for 35 (again) today.
As long as there is a breeze, it's fine.
And the breeze is reliable...
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| 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...
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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...)
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| 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!
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| Karumba Point and the Sunset Tavern |
"Home' just in time to see the Swans robbed by the Hawks... and we have about had it!
