Savannah Way

We continue our journey east along the Savannah Way towards Cairns. When we get to Cairns that will be the complete Savannah experience from Broome to Cairns. Another track to tick off the list! If you follow this link you will see we have pretty much done the lot.

http://www.savannahway.com.au/resources/swmap.pdf

We left King Ash Bay for Normanton, mostly dirt. The car and the van were champions as there was no trouble with either of them. We free camped along the way with a stop at Hells Gate Road House.

From Hells Gate we continued on to Burketown via Doomadgee (where the fuel bowsers were fully encased in a steel cage!) and had a look. Burketown was very important in the early settlement of Australia as it provided the country's only port in the Gulf, a lovely little town.

From Burketown we headed for a free camp on the Leichhardt river. It was a great camp at the falls. Our lounge room this time was of the falls and a heap of whistling kites to keep us company.

From our free camp we headed to Normanton and on the way visited Burke and Wills camp 119. This is where Burke and Wills turned around and headed south again to Cooper Creek, never to make it of course. They surveyed and reached the Gulf waters from here. We went and had a look at Kurumba as this is the only sealed road to access the gulf. We went and had a look at the sea and decided to head for a free camp in between Kurumba and Normanton. Kurumba was like a resort town, full of fishing boats and caravans for the winter.

The view of the Gulf Of Carpentaria from Kurumba.

I am writing this in Normanton waiting for the fuel truck to get here as there is no diesel in town. It's due at lunch or mid afternoon. The cars fuel light is on so we don't have too many options.