Up at 5am, quick breakfast and walk to the station with Brig and Phil by 6:10. Our bus driver today was Ron and he did a great job on providing informed commentary on our trip. There were 12 people doing the Queensland Railways Holiday and another 12 using the bus as public transport to various towns. Our trip from Cairns to Karumba is 780km. We started at 6:30am and arrived at 6:00pm. We averaged 80km/hour on the road.
The climb out of Cairns to Mareeba is very steep and winding but the rainforest is very beautiful. As we progressed through Atherton, Herberton and Ravenshoe the scenery changed to natural savannah. Here is what we saw through the window:
Heavy rains had been falling recently across the whole of the area we drove through and Ron pointed out every spot where the roads had been flooded, some places two or more meters under. He showed us the fixed cameras placed near the rivers that flood. Pictures are regularly placed on the website so that drivers can know whether the roads are passable before leaving base. Unfortunately the bureaucrats are having a standoff at the moment and the pictures have not been universally accessible.
The biggest river in the Gulf country is the Gilbert, and since several other rivers that we crossed feed into it before it empties into the Gulf of Carpentaria, it was spread widely over the coastal plains during the floods. At the moment it is low again; we saw no water on the actual road, but there were large pools everywhere still. This is the Gilbert River from the road bridge:
We saw the statue of the 8.7 meter crocodile in Normanton, which we had seen in 1998. The 45 minute trip from there to Karumba was across a fairly clear plain which was inhabited by thousands of birds. We had been seeing black kites for most of the day and here we saw pied geese, whistling kites,
many types of ducks and several brolgas. Ron slowed down for us to get a good look at the brolgas. This is a fantastic bird watching area.
After dumping our luggage in our park cabin we hurried to the point reserve to watch the sun set over the water, to see the bright quarter moon and watch Venus appear in the west. Very cosmic.
As it got dark we saw several dark shapes near the shore, moving slowly along. We had a discussion with others standing nearby: crocodiles? dugongs? porpoises? All are listed on the advice paper we were given.
We four bought cheap fish and chip dinners and chatted till 8:30. We noticed these two animals near our table. One is a cane toad, the other a frog.
It took a long day's travel to get to Karumba. We will take five days to return to Cairns.
The climb out of Cairns to Mareeba is very steep and winding but the rainforest is very beautiful. As we progressed through Atherton, Herberton and Ravenshoe the scenery changed to natural savannah. Here is what we saw through the window:
Heavy rains had been falling recently across the whole of the area we drove through and Ron pointed out every spot where the roads had been flooded, some places two or more meters under. He showed us the fixed cameras placed near the rivers that flood. Pictures are regularly placed on the website so that drivers can know whether the roads are passable before leaving base. Unfortunately the bureaucrats are having a standoff at the moment and the pictures have not been universally accessible.
The biggest river in the Gulf country is the Gilbert, and since several other rivers that we crossed feed into it before it empties into the Gulf of Carpentaria, it was spread widely over the coastal plains during the floods. At the moment it is low again; we saw no water on the actual road, but there were large pools everywhere still. This is the Gilbert River from the road bridge:
We saw the statue of the 8.7 meter crocodile in Normanton, which we had seen in 1998. The 45 minute trip from there to Karumba was across a fairly clear plain which was inhabited by thousands of birds. We had been seeing black kites for most of the day and here we saw pied geese, whistling kites,
many types of ducks and several brolgas. Ron slowed down for us to get a good look at the brolgas. This is a fantastic bird watching area.
After dumping our luggage in our park cabin we hurried to the point reserve to watch the sun set over the water, to see the bright quarter moon and watch Venus appear in the west. Very cosmic.
As it got dark we saw several dark shapes near the shore, moving slowly along. We had a discussion with others standing nearby: crocodiles? dugongs? porpoises? All are listed on the advice paper we were given.
We four bought cheap fish and chip dinners and chatted till 8:30. We noticed these two animals near our table. One is a cane toad, the other a frog.
It took a long day's travel to get to Karumba. We will take five days to return to Cairns.
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