We were warned that Karumba is "full of [bloody] Victorians!", but seeing as how we are actually from Victoria, it wasn't exactly a deterrent. We also heard that "they pack you into the caravan park like sardines", so we approached the town with a small amount of trepidation.
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| Walkers Creek, a few metres from the caravan |
Karumba has a population of less than 600 permanent residents, but each winter it is flooded with seasonal travellers (apparently all aged over about 60), who make the long 2,800km journey north from Melbourne to enjoy the sun and the fishing. The caravan parks tend to lease out their camp-spots to the same guests each year, and there is a strong feeling of community and friendship present.
We stayed in the Karumba Point Caravan Park, and although we initially booked in for 3 nights, we ended up staying a lot longer. The caravan park has many activities throughout the week including "Red Faces", a talent quest, in which guests dress up and perform for a difficult panel of judges, much like Hey Hey It's Saturday; complete with gong (which is a big pot and a wooden spoon). The park also sells bags of prawns for $12/kg - and being a prawn lover, I bought and ate so many of the little critters that I started to worry about my cholesterol levels!! (we ate almost a kilo per day!)
The fishing from the beach is fantastic and you can usually hook up a Bream or Sooty Grunter if you fish at first light. We caught many fish, each time we tried, which I cryo-vacked and refrigerated immediately.
We also hired a beautiful boat for the day and packed a picnic (cheeses, prawns etc and a few beers) so that we could enjoy the onboard barbecue. Jase caught a lovely queenfish (which we threw back, but also brought in a few bream, one of which didn’t make it to the esky because he was cooked with lemon juice, salt and oil on the barbie and eaten between slices of bread with lettuce and a creamy dressing. Belissimo!
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| Jase's queenie |
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| The fishing is so good here at Karumba. Even the bait is delicious!! |
Jase threw some scraps to the hawks who watched us closely from a nearby tree. He was very quick with the camera to capture these on film.
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| Our boat for the day - what a ripper! Perfect for the Norman River which is smooooooth water. |
This is Barramundi country, no doubt about it. But right now, at the height of winter, the water is cold and so you'd be crazy to think there's big Barra out there waiting to take your bait. Jase and I visited a Barra farm, however, to learn about this enigmatic and elusive Australian fish.
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| Feeding time. |
The Karumba Point Caravan Park provides its guests with a free fish barbecue - which, I must say, was bloody fantastic!! You can tell from this photo the "vintage" of the park's guests - all grey-haired, willing to talk to anyone about nothing-in-particular.... and Jase right there in the middle of it all!!!
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| The Cooks |
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| "Red Faces" aplenty |
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| Two contestants show us their a stand-up routine that included some very hammed-up, broad Aussie accents which may, or may not, have been entirely acted |
On our table was an extremely annoying woman who interrupted everyone's sentences so badly, I ended up in fits of uncontrollable laughter, and had to go for a walk to calm, down, because she had no idea what I was laughing at. Jase got through the evenings by making sure his glass was never empty. (actually, she tried to corner me the next day while I was in the Ladies, but I politely exited as quickly as I could!)
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So Jase has been able to have a successful fishing trip again at last! The photo of Jase and the queenie speaks volumes. Love the hawks in for their share! Great photos.
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