Friday...6 August

Today we took a day trip up the road to the end of the road! Karumba is a pretty little fishing village at the mouth of the Normanton River and the Gulf of Carpentaria. After the lovely clear blue WA oceans the thing that struck me the most was that the Gulf water is green. We drove all around the area looking at points of interest, but the highlight of the day was a tour of the Barramundi Centre the only place to successfully breed these fish in tanks. The fish they breed are then released into the water systems of Qld. Since being started in 1993, this fish breeding place has put more than half a million fingerlings into the lakes and rivers of Qld.
The crafty barramundi all begin life as boys, they mature first at 2-3years as males then change at 5-7 years into females. Females are capable of multiple spawnings and generally produce 3-6 million eggs per season. Barramundi only have two natural predators, humans and crocodiles!! Generally though, they are the top of the fish food chain and can grow to enormous sizes.  One of the breeding females at the fish farm today was over 20kg. She looked extemely autocratic and the staff say she has real attitude some days. After the life cycle and habits chat and following a video, we moved to the breeding tanks and everyone had the opportunity to climb the ladder to the top of the tank and hand feed the big big fish. Was fun watching them, they have no teeth and literally inhale their food (whole fresh sardines). They make a whoosh as they rush up from the bottom of the tank to take fish out of your hand, splashing the feeder in the process.
The lass that did our tour really knew her stuff, and she was good at getting and keeping our attention with plenty of little male and female fish jokes along the way. Turns out she is a commercial fisher and volunteers at the barramundi centre in her off season. Most interesting visit.
At one stage Karumba was a staff changing post for the commercial Empire Flying Boats en route from Sydney to London.
The town boat ramp was originally built by the RAAF during the war to service and load their Catalina flying boats.
As Karumba is a base for a commercial fishing and prawning fleet, we went to the one major fish market outlet and bought a kilo of fresh cooked banana prawns for $15. No prizes for guessing what himself had for tea tonight...

We are thinking this area is a place we may come back to another time in winter as so far the weather has been wonderfully barmy.