Josh and I stayed up last night
decorating the van for Zoe’s birthday.
We had streamers and balloons hanging both inside and out. We were all awake before her but when she
woke up she jumped into our bed for a lovely cuddle. We brought out her presents and card
consisting of mostly things that she knew about such as a skirt, moshi monster
cards, nail polishes, etc. but also a few well hidden things such as a new
Parra jersey and a dart board (great for practicing maths). We had breakfast and packed up the van, and
then approached reception about leaving our bikes behind (the bike rack had
cracked yet again and Josh was having it welded back up for further
travels). We first stopped at the
Normanton butcher and then were bound today for Karumba Point which is on the
south eastern tip of the Gulf of Carpentaria and is known as a good fishing
town. As we drove along, there were a
lot of kangaroo “splattos” on the road with stacks of small kites and eagles
eating at the flesh but as we got closer towards the coast the rough Savannah
grasses and small trees disappeared and left just a very flat horizon in our
sights. The rocky red dirt began to turn
lighter in colour and to more of a sandy texture and we began to see quite a
few brolgas along the road, mostly in pairs.
Fortunately we had booked into the Sunset Caravan Park as when we
arrived, it was packed. It was easy to
find our spot as it was about the only one vacant. Luckily the sites were a
pretty good size too as nearly everyone had tinnys alongside their mostly
Toyotas. We set up the van, including
hanging all of the balloons and streamers outside as there was very little room
in the van to get around them, and Josh set up outside including taking our
tinny off the roof and setting it up ready to use. We went for a bit of a drive into the town of
Karumba as well as to the information centre to see what we could do, before
heading to the bakery around 3pm to try and pick up a cake for Zoe’s
birthday. We had just missed out as they
closed half an hour earlier so tried the local store instead – and again
failed, but we did pick up some candles.
Upon getting back to the van, we booked a sunset tour in the Gulf to
celebrate Zoe’s birthday. Sami and Josh
headed to the pool for a while Zoe and I showered and got ready to go out. By the time we were all ready to go and got
to the wharf for take-off, everyone else was already on board and waiting for
us. Our tour started by taking us up the
Norman River and pointing out a few sites and telling us about some of the
local boats moored along the river.
While doing so, we enjoyed some dips and crackers, fresh prawns and then
cakes followed with beer, wine and softdrink to wash it down. Both Zoe and Samantha were given a go at
driving the boat as we headed out into the Gulf of Carpentaria to witness the
cloudy sunset. The operators even had
everyone on board sing Happy Birthday to Zoe while she was driving the boat
(fortunately she had something else to concentrate on instead of facing
everyone while they were singing – she was just a tad embarrassed). After the sun had set and we’d all taken lots
of photos, we headed back in. We drove
back to Karumba Point and went to the pub to buy a dessert (a piece of
blueberry cheesecake) to stick our candles in and sang Happy Birthday to Zoe –
again I think she was very embarrassed but had a lovely birthday!
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