End of the Road Motel, Queensland, Australia
We're not sure how but I'm worried we're becoming twitchers. We take a lot of photos of birds so of course we stopped at Mutton Hole Wetlands (that weren't very wet) on the outskirts of Normanton to take pictures of birds. Lots of brolgas, magpie geese, ducks and pelicans.
We've found out what we thought were all brolgas are in fact brolgas (red ring around back of head), sarus cranes (red nearly whole of head), and hybrids of the two
We stayed at the End of the Road Motel https://endoftheroadmotel.com.au/. A couple we'd met at Cobbold had also decided to stay here after we mentioned we were going to be at the motel for a couple of nights. They greeted us as we arrived to let us know the power had just come back on after a five hour outage. There was a note on the reception door letting us know our room number and that the keys were in the door. The room was huge and had fantastic aircon and a full size freezer that we could refreeze the water bottles we were using to keep the esky cold.
We'd pulled up beside the pool and loved the sign. Is that bombing hooliganism and glass children?
We had a couple of cold beers at the Sunset Tavern https://www.facebook.com/Karumbasunsettavern/ and then had a fantastic meal at The Anchorage Bar & Grill https://endoftheroadmotel.com.au/the-anchorage-bar-and-cafe-karumba/ on the beachside of the motel. Beautifully presented and delicious. We were sitting with other people so I didn't get my camera out. I wish that I had because the food was super good.
One of the things people go to see at Karumba is the sunset and Karumba did not let us down. It was amazing. One of Al’s pictures makes the sun look like it is just melting into the sea.
Karumba day 2
Because we travelled so late in the season, most of what Karumba offers from a tourist perspective had closed for the year. No sunset or croc cruises. Even Kerry-D fishing had stopped for the season. I'd emailed the motel to ask if they knew if there were still fishing tours going out and they recommended Mick's Fishing Adventures and I'd called Mick from Cobbold. We would have preferred to go out on our full day in Karumba but instead we were booked for the morning of the day we went back to... Croydon.
That meant this day was a day of not much. We went for a walk up to the boat ramp where there was a flock of noisy corellas in the park. Al had a chat with some people fishing off the beach, sat a long way back I’ll emphasise, to keep away from any surprise croc visits. On the beach beside the people were a group of black neck cranes.
Lots of people call these jabirus but they aren;t.
There's a path that runs from the point right through to the main township through the wetlands. If we’d thought about it we could have done it but we had no water with us. There were lots of wallabies all through the area.
We visited the Les Wilson Barramundi Discovery Centre https://barracentre.com.au/ that was actually really interesting. Neither of us took a single picture and I have no idea why. We bought lunch at the bakery. The lady who ran it was lovely and she had some very funny signs on the walls.
We filled up again and in hindsight shouldn’t have. The Prado was super economical and a full tank ended up being too much. It would have been easy to work out what distance we had left and then put in enough to get us closer to Cairns.
It was hot and we’d had enough so we settled in at The Sand Bar at the Sunset tavern for the afternoon. Somehow we ended up sitting with the assistant chef from the motel's restaurant. He was a very interesting guy.
What a life he’s had.
There's a lot of kites everywhere up north and these ones are the fnq equivalent of the seagulls that pinch chips from your hand. One of these kites took a fish taco out of the hand of a patron at the motel restaurant.
They are also now swooping on tables at the pub. I'd guess it's because there’s a nest in a tree in the garden and the chicks grow up not at all scared of people. Time to move the nest?
Across the water towards town we could see storm clouds building. It was literally the first storm of the wet season. There is no undercover seating at The Anchorage so they decided not to open. Dinner would be at the pub.
The ‘storm’ pretty much came to nothing. There was about 10 drops of rain and a bit of wind. The Anchorage could have opened but why open when you can still get paid not to? The stormy sunset was pretty cool though. Herb crusted barra and curry prawns at the pub and both meals were ok.
2025-05-23