Karumba - Sunday 29th April 2012

Right, up at 7am this morning - moving on day, so lots to pack up (not really, but sounds good!), we do have to rearrange the fridge/freezer to fit the fish/seafood we are being given to take with us!!!  So, coffee is needed first thing to get everything going and awake......  Packed up the camper, boys stopped for a chat about Hilux's etc., (probably haven't mentioned that my cousin also owns a Hilux SR5), time to get the camper back on the Hilux, pump up the air bags & tyres to accommodate for the extra weight.  More chatting.......  farewells, more chatting......  final farewells and we are out the gate about 10.20am!!!!  I have to say (not that anyone else probably wants to know), but it was wonderful seeing my cousin & talking to my Uncle - I haven't seen Young Dave for about 10 years we all worked out and haven't spoken to my Uncle for a while.  You all don't necessarily need to know these details, but I'll tell you anyway - my Uncle David is my mum's twin brother, so he has been close to us for all my life - sadly my mum passed away Christmas Eve 2009 and that hit us all pretty hard.

Now, back to more fun things.....  We departed Karumba around 10.20am heading along the Karumba Developmental Road to Normanton. We did manage to take some photo's of some birdlife on our way this time - just wonderful!

Stopped at Normanton for some tourist type piccies & comfort stop (most important!), then continued along the Gulf Developmental Road to Croydon for lunch. 

Lunch consumed, onwards to Georgetown, HOWEVER a east fo Croydon we had a small incident - I was reading our map or something and heard Craig saying repeatedly F*!k, F8!k, F*!k, looked up to see what appeared to be an animal disappear under the bullbar/front drivers tyre of the car, heard thumping along the length of the car, I gave a squeal at some point and looked in the side mirror to see a very motionless kangaroo out the back :(  Craig informed me, that the roo jumped up out the the gutter on the right hand side of the road, took 2 hops and collided with the side of our bullbar and you know the rest......
Craig, as most outback travellers know, didn't swerve otherwise we would end up on our side in the bush somewhere and possibly dead, but he checked the car was steering properly, braking properly and we kept going - and yes, the roo was dead, we would never leave an injuried animal on the side of the road - we know better.

So, we continued on to Georgetown stopping for some beer for boy as we weren't sure if there was a pub at Mount Surprise, which was our stop for the night.  Arrived around 4pm at Mount Surprise and SURPRISE there's a pub there (go figure, if I had of said to boy I'm sure there's a pub there to get your beer, murphy's law there wouldn't have been, so I played it safe!).  We stayed at Bedrock village Caravan Park, which was a very friendly, clean & pleasant place to stay - powered site $27.00/nite.

The reason I didn't update the blog last night was because our neighbours came over to say hello and we chatted for a little too long.  We however have one fillet of King Salmon between us (yes, it was that big) and some potato discs (we had to give all our salad bits to Dave, so we could fit in the fish fillets, prawns, crabs & squid!).

I don't think it was a late night, but we were woken 3 times during the night by the dingoes howling (our guard dog lifted his head once and promptly put it back down in the doona!).  For those travelling that way, we would recommend staying there, it was really pleasant.

So I don't drain all the batteries in the camper tonight, keeping this computer powered up, I will update you tomorrow night on our travels from today & tomorrow when we arrive at Carmila Beach tomorrow night.