Tag: Gulf of Carpentaria

Hungerford to Karumba.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Having spent about three weeks in outback NSW, following the Darling River for much of that time, we had now crossed over the border (through a gate) and into Queensland at Hungerford. Our plan was to have a short lunch stop there and then continue into the Currawinya NP nearby. Our plans soon changed on talking to the local publican, who said, “I’d be heading straight out of here and getting to the bitumen as fast as possible if I were you….the rain’s on its way and should be here by about 4 o’clock!” Knowing that the road would become impassable for a few days at least after the rain, we took his advice and headed straight up to Eulo, travelling on a beautiful smooth dirt road all the way to the bitumen. No sooner had we checked into the Eulo caravan park, than the rain started – virtually right on time at about 4.15!

Anyone who has spent time in these outback parts knows that rain is not just a shower – it pelts down in buckets, and so it did for the entire night. Next morning dawned bright and sunny, but the rain had taken its toll. The road from Hungerford was closed and probably would be for a week, so lucky we had taken the publican’s advice. Several campers in the free camp area just out of town in Eulo had not heeded the locals’ warnings and were now destined to remain on site there for a few more days than they had planned, as the soil down there “turns to glass” after rain. So we had definitely made the right choice to stay in town.

North of Eulo, we called in at Toompine to check out the old Toompine Hotel, out there on its own, miles from anywhere and a stopping point we have visited several times passing through this area. We had heard it had changed hands and were quite surprised to see that it was only a skeleton of its former self. Apparently in the process of renovation and extension, they had discovered a serious white ant infestation, so were pretty much rebuilding from the ground up. Next door, the café is run by one of the pub’s owners who was happy to take us through the “new’ building which, when finished, will look and feel much like the original.

Lake Houdraman, about 5 kilometres east of Quilpie, is an absolute paradise, and an oasis in the outback. Situated on a private working sheep, goat and cattle property, The Lake campground is operated by the owners and is a beautiful, tranquil place to spend a night or two. We chose to set up right on the water’s edge where we enjoyed viewing many varieties of birds that visit the lake and the beautiful shady trees surrounding it, and took in the splendid sight of an outback sunset over the lake, a scene enhanced by the thousands of beautiful waterlilies growing on the lake. The bush campsite is not free, but has great amenities including flushing toilets and showers, and welcoming evenings around a great campfire at the onsite “Lakeview Pub”. Highly recommended!!

After a few overnight stops along the way (and the obligatory lunch at Tattersalls Hotel in Winton) we arrived at Corfield in time to join in the festivities at the Corfield Club Hotel for the first State of Origin Rugby match. We had been invited via Facebook by Amy at the cattle station we looked after for a month back in 2018, but judging by the double take and look of complete surprise on Hilton the barman’s face when we turned up, it seems they weren’t really expecting us to come. So after a pleasant night catching up with some of the locals – and unfortunately watching Queensland lose the first game of the series! –  we then spent a night out on “our” cattle station catching up with our friends, Hilton, Amy, and Jack -and George the dog.

Clem Walton Park, on the Corella Dam between Cloncurry and Mt Isa, is another unexpected oasis and a popular camping area. Having previously been there for a picnic, we knew it would be a pleasant camp spot for a couple of quiet nights and were not disappointed. Despite the number of other campers, we managed to get a good roomy spot beside the river with plenty of shade, where we again watched and listened to the birds and went for a wander along the river and up to the dam wall.

For the next month our time was spent at Gregory Downs, the cattle station where our daughter worked as a ringer for seven years and where we have developed strong friendships with Dave and Tess (the manager and his wife (who is also the station cook) as well as quite a few of the local station crew and townsfolk. Knowing that they were planning to retire at the end of the year we wanted to take one last opportunity to visit them at the station – and our favourite riverside campsite – before they handed over to the new managers, who at that time were an unknown quantity. We earned our keep while there by helping out in various tasks – cleaning the social club, restacking social club fridges and helping out in the kitchen.

We had planned our arrival time so we’d be available to help over the weekend at the Gregory Campdraft, which ran from the Friday night through to late Sunday afternoon. I’m not sure we knew what we were letting ourselves in for!! Friday, we spent all day at the station kitchen assisting in the preparation of huge dishes of salad, pasta, potato bakes, curries and casseroles, all of which (along with many donations of similar kinds from other stations in the area) were destined for the Saturday night campdraft dinner. Then down to the campdraft kitchen at the racetrack where we helped cooking, making, and serving hundreds of steak sandwiches and sausages in rolls for almost 5 hours. We had taken Roxy down there so we could camp there for the weekend, making it easier to come and go from our kitchen duties. So Saturday morning we awoke before 6am (!!) to the sounds of the announcers calling the first competitors up with, “We’ll start events as soon as we can see”. So back to the kitchen for the day, firstly cooking/serving bacon and egg rolls for the campdrafters’ breakfasts, progressing through the day to lunch -hot foods, sandwiches, snacks, drinks etc all the while continuously doing dishes, preparing, chopping, slicing, replenishing supplies, till later in the afternoon when the casseroles etc had to be heated ready for the evening plated dinners which started at 7pm.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much food laid out on a buffet spread in a non-commercial setting, but then I’ve never seen such a continuous line of eager diners that just kept on coming in to savour the delights of country hospitality. After such a long busy day, we felt we deserved a drink or two out at the bar area where the campdrafters were in full party mode, but it didn’t take us long to head over to Roxy and bed.

Sunday morning, we started early and did it all over again working from 8am till 6pm! More bacon egg rolls, more sandwiches, more roast beef and gravy rolls, more chips, more pies, more steak sandwiches, more hot dogs, more, more more…..and then at the end of it was the big clean up!  Gary estimated that over the weekend, he cooked about 35 kg of chips and over 400 steaks and innumerable sausages, aside from all the other food we served. To say we were buggered is an understatement! But in all of this we have found a renewed admiration and respect for the local CWA ladies and station ladies who turn up and do this several times a year, year after year to serve their community. Well done ladies!!!

Once the campdraft weekend was over, we tended to alternate between camping down at our spot on the river or camping up at the homestead compound outside the station social club. In the past, we used to drive our car the 3km from our camp up to social club, leaving our caravan set up by the river, so I’d been wondering whether having Roxy the motorhome would make it a bit more of a hassle to go up to social club – because we go up there EVERY night! –  but it actually turned out pretty well because we could go up, have a few drinks, and then just sleep in Roxy in the compound if we needed to. Very handy – no drink driving!

The second game of the State of Origin series was to be a big night for the station stock crew at the Social Club with pizzas for dinner, so Gary and I gave Tess the night off and took care of making the pizzas – 18 of them, ranging from meat lovers to cheese and garlic to “the lot” to “arseburner” – one made with hot salami, chillies and tabasco – Ouch!! – which all won the seal of approval from all who partook.

Sue and John who own the next-door station, 20 or so kilometres up the road, invited us to come out to their outstation about an hour or so further on, where the rest of the family was camped out while mustering, so we went.  After having some lunch which Sue had brought for them, the crew set out again- two on horseback, one on a motorbike, one in the chopper, and Gary in the “bullcatcher” with John, where for the next three hours he was hammered and battered by tree branches and pea bush hitting him in the face! You see, the “bullcatcher” is a classy vehicle – no doors, no windscreen and no windows, but it does have a heavy duty bullbar equipped with tyres for extra punch when catching the bulls. I was the lucky one who fared much better and got a lift partway back to the home station in the chopper!

On our last night cooking for the station crew, we were allowed to use the BRAND new, never-before-used barbecue to cook up the most delicious looking pork chops which had come from station-reared piggies. Everyone was looking forward to a feed of pork which would make a nice change from beef which constitutes a good part of the menu here, being a beef cattle station. Alas! Within five minutes of putting them on the barbie, Gary was yelling out to me to bring out the fire blanket! Although the chops were well trimmed of fat, there was still enough to run down onto the burners and catch fire pretty well straight away. The fire blanket did nothing to quell the flames, so out came the fire extinguisher – and that put an abrupt end to our pork chops for dinner! Luckily we had some leftovers we could quickly heat and serve and in the end, after a good scrub, the barbie wasn’t ruined forever, so not as much of a disaster as we thought! The next night, Dave was very quick to refuse Gary’s offer to cook the weekly Saturday barbecue down at social club – wonder why??

Having spent a month at Gregory Downs, we decided it was time to make a move and continue our quest to reach the Tip, so we headed up through Burketown and out to stop at Leichhardt Falls for the night. We have visited these falls many times over the last twenty years and only once have we seen them in full flow. This time, like so many previous visits, there was not even so much as a trickle falling over the rock ledges, but we were treated to the sights of a couple of freshwater crocodiles lazing on rocks at the base of the “falls,” as well as flocks of cockatiels and thousands of corellas settling in the trees and proceeding to strip them of any foliage.

From there we had a quick lunch stop in Normanton, long enough for me to get eaten by Kris the enormous crocodile, before heading up to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria to visit Frank, the former Gregory Downs gardener, who was happy to show us his daily routine of feeding by hand the wild whistling kites and black kites, and where we stayed long enough to enjoy another wonderful Karumba sunset over the Gulf waters.

Karumba was our final familiar place before we started heading up Cape York Peninsula into territory we had previously not visited.

WTF? Or Ha Ha

• After the rain in Eulo, we walked down to the free camp area to join many others watching the idiot who had stayed through the night’s rain, but then decided he urgently needed to leave, and in trying to get his car and caravan out, became so hopelessly bogged to the axles that it took him about 5 hours of winching to different points back and forth before he finally got out. Having made a right spectacle of himself, making his wife quite embarrassed and having made a real boggy mess of the campsite, it turns out he was only heading 90 kilometres up the road!!
• Rental motorhome at Cooper’s Creek Bridge near Windorah, drives from sign to sign taking photos – but not getting out of the vehicle, then when crossing the bridge stops dead in the middle -totally oblivious to the road train right behind him!!
• Camping at a roadside stop with several other vehicles beside a fenced station property, one idiot climbs through the fence and proceeds to cut down trees for firewood using a chainsaw! It’s PRIVATE PROPERTY!!!!
• After all the dirt roads travelled so far, how does it happen that we get a stone chip in the windscreen when travelling on a sealed highway??
• Standing talking outside the main house at the station, Tess suddenly days “oh my goodness” and promptly stands on a little python that was crawling around the kids’ feet.
• After spending 5 nights camped in the station compound due to our commitment to cooking/helping out in the kitchen and due to the rain that had also descended on us in that time, we went back to our riverside camp to find the river was now about a metre deeper than when we left.  Normal for these parts… and it receded just as quickly.
• How to disappoint a person looking forward to a good feed of barramundi and chips – tell her you are cooking it using mum’s old recipe of boiling it in vinegar. INSTANT “20 past 8 smile”. (Of course, we were joking!)
• At Leichhardt Falls, a lone camper came to ask if he could “borrow“ some hot water to heat his noodles, as he had come away three months ago a “bit under-prepared”. A BIT??? No stove or cooking or eating utensils and he’s a BIT under-prepared??!!