Karumba, “Outback by the Sea” is a pretty good description of Karumba. The beach is not a typical beach we see on the east coast. There is no green grass or white sandy beaches, can’t even walk in the shallows of the water due to crocs. The water is an amazing blue colour, the shoreline is dotted with interesting rocks, some have been made into cairns. Most areas are pretty dusty, so “Outback by the Sea” is a pretty apt description of Karumba.
We decided to stay at the Sunshine Caravan Park for 2 nights, dearest in town but it was all about the location, walking distance to the things we wanted to be near. At $45 a night it’s not cheap, but it’s remote and hey they can get away with charging it.
We have heard many stories about this place of nomads from down south coming up to avoid their cold weather and setting up in the park for 3/4 months, with their tinnies, doing lots of fishing, taking the place over as if they own it. The stories aren’t particularly flattering of the tribe of nomads, so we timed our visit to when the crowds numbers had died down and most of them had departed to head south once more. Plus there is no way you can get a site at peak season.
The park is dusty, most sites have concrete slabs of one size or another, with most of the slabs on the small size, the rest is dust. Comments we had read was that the sites were small, ours certainly wasn’t and most seemed to be of adequate size. Personally we felt it would have been better to gravel the lot, like they do at the Opal Caravan Park in Lightening Ridge. It just seems the money they are raking in is not being put back into the park, like I said it’s all about the location.
From the park we could walk to the beach, down to Ash’s which sell the most amazing and best value Barra and chips. 2 large crumbed pieces of Barra and a very generous serving of chips for $25. It was really nice to eat them on a bench at the beach watching the sunset, Jess even got some for her tea.
One day we did a bike ride on the 3.8km path that leads from Karumba Point to Karumba. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable ride. We also had the Barra and chips again that night, who could resist and they were even better.
