Day Seventeen : Cobbold Gorge To Normanton
Getting away just a bit earlier than planned we attacked the 40 ks of dirt to the turnoff to Georgetown just out of Forsayth. Well we attacked with as much vigour as we could still getting mowed down by a briskly driven Kenworth, and not long after by a revved up local hitting every 60th corrugation in his Hyundai excel.
It’s funny how the memory fades over time and adds bits that really aren’t true. So it was with Georgetown. We remembered it a s a beautifully kept little town with a great shop and a wonderful park. Ron remembered it had great sausages at the butcher shop.
Reality was it is a dusty little place with one shop worthy of the shop designation, and we haven’t got a ruling on the sausages yet. We spotted a coffee van resplendent in its livery but alas it might as well have been a signpost, as it had nought but a driver.
We fuelled and turned towards Normanton some 300 ks to the westish. Just as we got underway, the brakes on the right side of Richard and Denise’s’ van locked on, leaving a cracker of a skid mark on the road in downtown Georgetown. A well-seasoned hoon would have had a challenge matching it.
After a bit of electrical guesswork we moved a few things, wriggled another and said a prayer to the voltage gods before hitting the road. The combined effort must have worked as it did not play up again all day.
We got off the road for a committed, yet very polite tour truck driver who overtook us and continued on as did the same resplendent coffee van. We did not get off the road for POP (Pensioner on Patrol) in the red bongo van who reckoned his real-estate was indeed ours. His gesture to us as we passed was interpreted as ‘hello, I love your Zone van’ although the positioning of his fingers may have suggested otherwise.
Croydon was next at about the halfway point. It was everything Georgetown wasn’t. It had a lovely little park, a decommissioned Police watchhouse doubling as a doghouse for two beautiful Labradors who, like their owner, were waiting for their new hose to be completed before moving in; and a café.
The café was complete in all respects. Serving mostly servo food with an Asian twist, it was only challenged in unique things to talk about by the funny little man with a long beard, very short T-shirt, suspenders and a potty little gut hanging over his belt. Like the coffee van, he turned up everywhere.
We had a feed under the umbrella near the pub before heading off again. On the outskirts of town we located a coffee trailer with twocustomers evident. One was the local police officer and the other was the driver of the Georgetown coffee van!!! We figured the Croydon coffee was fantastic or the coffee van coffee was crap……or both!
One lane bridges, big rivers, transparent Brolgas (G and Peter didn’t see them whilst everyone else did) and a few random roos filled out the afternoon as the road got better and straighter. By about two and a bit we rolled into Normanton. We fuelled up, watched the lady with her van almost wipe out the bowsers then had a look at the Purple Pub and the huge model croc. G and Peter reminisced about their dog Jarra sitting in the mouth of the croc more than 20 years ago. Julie did the same, but it was her in the crocs mouth back then. We recreated the moment for Julie but did not have a spare dog on hand for the full re-enactment.
We noticed that Normanton has had some major money spent on infrastructure over years including a spanking Christian College but still needed three working hotels to service a mere 1300 residents. Its thirsty work in the north. And it had the same bloody coffee van!
We found our camping spot in the heat just north of the town towards Karumba. Once set up, we sat beside the river at a croc safe distance and yarned. Well we yarned and watched fisherman Ron put on a masterclass. Literally every time he cast he hauled back in a lure! To make this class outstanding he demonstrated how to cast into a tree, snag a lure on the bank and lose one, only to find it at his feet. We were blessed.
Julie and Denise excelled again. Their combined pasta effort was delicious at the top end of the scale, leaving us full and contented, ready to enjoy a magnificent sunset over a croc infested river. Taking photos was a balance of getting close to the water but making sure a safety tree was between us and anything with nasty teeth.
The long day in the saddle had left us beaten and ready for bed.