Day 44 Normanton to Mt Surprise

One of the first rules of travelling is never stay within earshot of the airport.  This is difficult in Darwin, and I guess I should have checked better when we rolled into Normanton.  The runway begins about 50m from where our caravan was parked, and there was only one flight this morning. A rather noisy twin prop aircraft that taxied and sat for 5 minutes before ramping up to full power at 0530.   

We got up considering we were all awake, watched the trail of nomads leaving town, and Lisa made the bacon and eggs of the gods breakfast.  It was coolish today, but there was strong gusty winds all night as well but a nice sunny day otherwise.

We were able to get the caravan packed up early, and Lisa's foot was feeling much better, so she has insisted that she will do some of the driving today.  First stop though was town to see if we could find some bread rolls for lunch.  On the way through town we came across this dude.  His name is Krys.  At first we thought we must be at another of the big things until we stopped to look.  Krys was shot by a local hunter in the Normanton River in 1957 and remains the Guinness World Record holder for the largest Estuarine Crocodile ever captured. 

Old Krys here was a lazy 8.63m long, approx 4m wide and weighed in at 2 tonnes.  He was shot by Krystina Pawloski although all photographs were destroyed in the 1974 flood.  This statue has been erected in full scale to show the size of him. 

I do declare if I saw this croc coming out of the water to talk to me, I'd be soiling my strides and running as fast as I could.  Get a load of Emma lying down in his mouth.


We forgot all about the bakery after seeing Krys and took off towards Undara.  The goal was to get as close as we could today so we can do our 1030 tour of the Lava Tubes tomorrow.  The roads since we left Mt Isa have been little short of completely crap with large tracts of single lane truck hauling route.  By single lane, I mean for both directions shared.  The left side of the car is spending an unusual amount of time off road.  There have been floods recently, so the roads have been washed away in many places and there are massive pot holes.  Add to that the screaming cross wind, and driving has been challenging for the last 1000km. 

We finally made it to Mt Surprise today, and saw a tiny driveway that said caravan park.  In we turned to find that the park is really very nice, but the owners are a bit snakey about children.  Only $27.00 per night for powered site with the 3 kids is the best value that we have had except for free camping, but we have water, electricity and hot showers.  There is a fair whack of wildlife for the kids to look at including a bird sanctuary and a miniature horse stud attached to the property.

Lisa and I lounged the afternoon away with some Rekordials talking to the neighbours (Peter and Jen).  It's nice to be able to indulge in the social aspect of camping without the kids harassing us for a day.  Peter reminds me uncannily of my father in appearance and mannerisms, apart from the fact I think my dad would rather gnaw his own leg off than sleep in a caravan.

We stopped in at the pub for our dinner, and picked up this tiny rump steak for $17.00.  I was disappointed, I think it could have been bigger, but I can always get a snack back at the van. :)