18th July
What a wonderful little town this is!! It’s friendly and relaxing, the weather is great and it has the most amazing sunsets!! It is easy to see why so many of the grey nomads come and spend their winters here.
Karumba Point, where we are staying literally has about 3 streets. It has couple of caravan parks, a tiny petrol station, a convenience store, a fish and chip shop, a dusty bush airstrip and an awesome pub. And there is hardly a two-wheel drive car to be seen. We love the feel of it, and in a way, reminds us of Maun in Botswana.
It is apparently one of the only towns in the gulf with a beach, and a pretty unique one at that. The beach is a combination of shelly white sand and white rock, which has formed with a mix of crushed shells and full sized fossilised shells. At low tide, the water rolls back to reveal the mud flats.
The sunsets here are amazing!! Even though we are still in Queensland, because Karumba is on the west side of the gulf, the sun sets in a huge ball over the ocean. The best place to see the sunset is from the pub.
The other things Karumba is famous for is fishing and seafood. Although we did try fishing, we are definitely not a fishing family!! Drew and the boys are just don’t have the patience and I prefer to lie on the beach and sunbake. Today the kids lasted about a half an hour before they got bored and turned to rock skimming. We were never really going to catch anything today anyway with the pelicans hanging around and the locals reckon the conditions just aren’t quite right at the moment. Lucky for $24 a kilo fresh cooked king prawns and great locally caught fish and chips!!
The caravan park was super friendly. The first night we arrived, they had a free fish bbq – not just any fish – beautiful fresh, locally caught Barramundi. It was a whole night of entertainment. The night kicked off with loads of people from the audience getting up to sing “give me a home among the gum trees”. I couldn’t believe our kids had never heard the song before, but pretty soon knew all the words and the actions. There was poetry reading, raffles, live music and more. It was a really good, old fashioned, wholesome night of fun.
Our caravan neighbours were also great. And they had a couple of dogs who the kids loved playing with. Everyone was so friendly and we have felt at home for the few days we have been here. We would definitely come back!
Today we will begin making our way south and west toward Lawn Hill National Park.
The Travelling Dixons 