Hi guys
It was a long drive up into the very small and remote place of Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria which looked just fabulous. It was our 30th wedding anniversary so it was a quick shower and on with the glad rags before walking around to the local hotel for a wine and a meal while watching a fabulous sunset. I guess after 30 years of Marriage and still together having fun is worth celebrating.
The weather as usual is still very hot up here and it's nice to have a great pool at the camp to soak in and have a good chat with other campers. I went on a 1/2 day fishing trip and caught lots of fish but unlike Coral Bay they were mostly small with the only good eating fish being a steel back salmon which was yummy. Another good thing to do here is to do a tour of the barramundi hatchery where you get a tour of the facility and see a very interesting video on the life cycle of this fascinating fish. All on the tour get to hand feed some very big fish ( just under a metre long ) and as we were told the fish do not have teeth it sounded exciting and safe. They suck the pilchard's at lighting speed and it makes a large loud splash but one grabbed Steph's finger as she was not quick enough letting go of her 15cm fish and it scraped her finger and finger nail very hard leaving deep scratch marks. Steph sure got a fright and it was very funny. Another guy who could not speak English had a chunk taken off his finger requiring a large bandaid to stop the bleeding. No they don't bite ?????? Yeh right.
It was an awesome and very exciting experience that we both will not forget !
To finish off our stay at this special place we took a sunset cruise of the local harbour seeing a cattle ship being loaded with 1700 head of cattle before setting sail to the Philippines. We did not get to see any croc's but saw their mud slides into the water and lots of amazing bird life. The highlight was heading out 7km into the gulf at low tide to a sandy island for drinks and nibbles and to watch the sun set into the sea. Before leaving the boat you were given a inscribed wine glass to keep and use while wandering about the shell covered Island. After a few glass's they set up tables and laid out a fabulous selection of cheese, salami and dips etc then brought out bowls of these huge local prawns.
We have never seen Banana prawns so big before and believe it or not there were some left over after everyone had their fill. I must have eaten 20 of them and wow were they yummy but when a fruit platter and carrot cake arrived to finish it off most of us were just too full.
The sunset was just fab. and it was after dark before it was time to board the boat for the trip back in nice warm conditions. Steph reckoned it was one of the best experience so far and I had to agree also. It was sad to be leaving but after three great days doing exciting things it was time to move on.