Gulf Savannah Region is a large area of savannah grasslands, bushlands and arid saltplains in northern Queensland.
Its northern parts are covered in mangroves and tidal creeks inhabited by crocodiles, but known for Karumba's prawn fishing and birds of Normanton. In the western parts are some outback national parks like Lawn Hill Gorge and the world famous Riversleigh Fossil Field. In south are some gemfields around Croydon Normanton, Georgetown, Forsayth and Einasleigh. If you like to travel in the outback, you will also enjoy the history of Australian explorers and Burke and Wills expedition. Here is some information about the Gulf Savannah region, and in the end of the page is an Australian outback map.
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Undara Lava Tubes and Mount Surprise The road from Innisfail on the coast takes you first to the little town Mount Surprise with its pub signed “Thirst Aid”, two roadhouses and a train station. Outside Mount Surprise are the famous Undara Lava Tubes, left behind by a shield volcano that erupted here 190,000 years ago. In the eruption that lasted for three months, the outer layers of the huge lava flows cooled and froze into a crust. The hot lava kept flowing inside the tubes, and finally left behind the huge hollow basalt chambers. There is the Undara Lava Tubes tourist complex around it and you cannot visit the place without taking a tour, but don’t let that disappoint you – the tours are very interesting and the accommodation and restaurant excellent. You can stay in a lodge and dine in the restaurant if you want to, but if you are on a low budget and like to camp, there are plenty of camp sites and barbeques so you can cook your own dinner.
Einasleigh and Forsayth - Gulf Savannah Region West of Mount Surprise and the Undara Lava Tubes, you can turn left on to a little detour through small towns Einasleigh and Forsayth, and visit the beautiful Gobbold Gorge. Einasleigh is a former Copper mining centre and today just a lovely small laid-back town with no shops, one pub, and a beautiful black basalt gorge. You can stay at the pub, and in a room next to the public bar there is an interesting miniature collection of old cars and houses complete with furniture, kitchen gear and even beer cans - in amazing detail. Forsayth has a post office and a small shop in the same building, and a pub where you can stay but there is also the Goldfields Homestay and Van Park.
Gobbold Gorge - Gulf Savannah Region South is the Gobbold Gorge – a wonderful oasis that was found on a huge family farm. Like the Undara Lava Tubes, Gobbold Gorge is on a private ground and you cannot visit the gorge without taking a tour, but it’s worth it. It’s informative, interesting and you’ll see lots of wildlife. Freshwater turtles and crocodiles lay on the riverbanks only metres from the passing tour boat. The accommodation is a family business but a very nice one – there is a large camping ground and plenty of room, and you can choose whether to cook your dinner over the camp fire or dine at the restaurant, but I tell you, the bar isn’t easy to resist – the people are very friendly and cold beer goes down very well.
Georgetown Queensland - Gulf Savannah Region Back on the main road, there is Gorgetown. It used to be a busy town in the Gulf Savannah region but today it’s just a quiet little place in the middle of gem fields. The new tourist attraction is the Ted Elliott Mineral Collection in The Terrestrial – a huge collection of gemstones from all around the world, very beautiful, and interesting if you are into geology. If you happen to stay over night, there is a pub with hotel rooms, Latara Resort Motel, and Midway Caravan Park.
Croydon Queensland - Gulf Savannah Region West from Georgetown is Croydon, once a large goldmining town with more than 30 pubs and 5000 mines around it. A historic Courthouse, a jail and an old school are still here, and so is the pub (of course), but other than that there’s not much happening in Croydon. Check out a few old miners cottages (one on the following photo), the Chinese Temple site, the “Oldest Store in OZ”, the Town Hall and the modern train station. Gulflander shuttles once-weekly between here and Normanton (futhern north-west in the Gulf Savannah); and you can stay at the Club Hotel, which is the town’s pub, or the Golden Caravan Park.
Normanton Hotel - Purple Pub North-east from Croydon is Normanton - once the port-town for Croydon gold rush, and still the busiest town in the Gulf Savannah region. The first thing you notice is how colourful it is. All the old buildings are beautifully painted in bright colours - even the public toilet is covered in Aboriginal art. The town has got a sizeable Aboriginal population who peacefully sit in front of the shop, eating ice cream and drinking soft drinks, I did the same with them for a few hours and it was very nice, but then I went to the pub. Normanton has the surprising amount of three pubs so after having stayed in countless one-pub towns, for a change you can have a bit of a crawl. The most famous is of course the Purple Pub, but Albion Hotel and the Central are very nice too. Other pretty buildings include the Shire Council building, Westpac Bank, the Burns Philp & Co Ltd which is where the library is today, and an amount of colourfully painted tackle shops, butcheries, fuel and car mechanics shops. Normanton has also got two of Australia’s Big Things: the Big Barramundi and the Big Crocodile - a replica of an eight metres saltie found in the Gulf Savannah region, the largest ever shot in Australia. You can stay at the pubs, and in Normanton Caravan Park.
Karumba Accommodation and Animal Bar North of Normanton, right on the shore of the Gulf Savannah, is Karumba – a town synonymous with fishing. Its permanent population of 500 triples in winter when southerners come here to fish, and the town itself is kept alive by fishing and prawning industries. There are plenty of fishing and croc-watching tour operators in town, such as The Ferryman, Kerry D, Delta Dawn and Fishing Charters Karumba; and worth a visit is the Barramundi Discovery Centre that continuously stocks the waters with barramundi so that you can happily fish. In Karumba Point, there is the Sunset Tavern – grab a glass of wine and enjoy the spectacular sunset of the Gulf Savannah. In the town, there is the famous Animal Bar, sometimes a quiet drinking hole, other times it fully lives up to its name. In Karumba, you can stay at Gulf Country Van Park and Ash’s Holiday Units, and at the Karumba Point there are the Sunset Caravan Park, End of the Road Motel and Karumba Point Tourist and Caravan Park.
Australian Explorers and Birds of Normanton Between Normanton and Karumba are the internationally renowned Gulf Savannah Wetlands containing lots of bird species such as herons and egrets, curlews, godwits, knots, stints, ducks, brolgas and magpie geese. South-east of Normanton is the Burke and Wills Expedition Camp no 119 – the northernmost point the most famous Australian explorers' Burke and Wills expedition reached on their fatal expedition from Melbourne in 1861.
Burketown - Gliding the Morning Glory West of Normanton and Karumba is Burketown, in the middle of Gulf Savannah's flat saltplains. Burketown is actually not on the Gulf Savannah but on the mouth of Albert River about 30km away from the ocean waters. It was founded in 1865, but yellow fever wiped out the most of the towns's population only shortly after. Just above the high tide level, Burketown is often cut off the rest of Australia during the wet season and in 1887 the town was devastated by a tidal surge. Today it is the centre of a wast cattle country and famous for its “Morning Glory” cloud formations between September and November.
Burketown Accommodation and Artesian Bore There is a colourful artesian bore in Burketown, an interesting cemetery, old wharves, and the old boiling-down works where meat was processed in the old days. There are a few events in town which is when the things get lively around the otherwise pretty quiet pub. In September, there is the Burketown Show; and the Burketown Rodeo is held in July. During the Easter weekend, there is a barramundi fishing competition – the town declares itself the Barramundi Capital of Australia. You can stay at the Burketown Pub or Burketown Caravan Park – personally I camped on the saltplanes next to Albert River, but that was only because we had had a few too many beers at the pub. There are saltwater crocodiles in the river so no sane people would go camping there.
Lawn Hill National Park and Riversleigh Fossil Field South of Burketown is the remote but magnificent Lawn Hill National Park - one of the real gems of the Gulf Savannah region. The roads to the park are long and dusty, and when you finally arrive at the oasis which Lawn Hill is, the greenery is amazing. Lawn Hill National Park has some interesting geology with a deep gorge in the ancient sandstone, and some excellent fossils. Around the gorge grow cabbage palms and pandanus, while the hilltops are covered in Spinifex grasslands.
Lawn Hill NP - Gulf Savannah Region The gorge between the red rock walls is wonderful to kayak, and there are 25km of bushwalks around the gorge which take you to some beautiful places like Constance Range with views over the valley behind the range, Wild Dog Dreaming with Aboriginal shell middens, and Island Stack and the Upper Gorge with some great views over the Lawn Hill Gorge. You can camp in the Lawn Hill National Park but you have to book with EPA. Another option is to stay at Adels Grove outside the national park, which is a beautiful camping ground and there's also tent and room accommodation, a restaurant, a shop and a bar. South of the Lawn Hill Gorge is the famous Riversleigh Fossil Field.
Here's an Australian outback map showing the Gulf Savannah Region, where I have tagged the places that I mentioned on this web page. You can click on the tags to see what places they are, and double-click anywhere on the map to zoom it in and see the places closer. Drag the map to move around, and if you want to see the satellite image with Google Earth, click on "Sat" in the top right hand corner.
NOTE: This website is written in British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all correct in the language used in Australia.
