The Savannah Way

The Savannah Way is a tourist route that travels from Cairns to Broome passing through, as the name suggests, Australia’s tropical savannah woodland. Our journey will take us on just a small section of this tourist route using the Kennedy Highway, the Gulf Development Road and the Burke Development Road, travelling from Ravenshoe in the Atherton Tablelands to Karumba on southern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. At our leisurely pace we took overnight stops at Mount Surprise, Georgetown, Croydon and Blackbull Siding before reaching Normanton, the largest town in the Gulf region. Our planning was for a three-day stay in Normanton for the main purpose of taking a trip on the famous and iconic ‘Gulflander’ train. The Savannah Way is sealed all the way to Karumba and is in very good condition making the journey relatively easy. Although, there are still some reasonably long stretches of single lane bitumen between Mount Surprise and Georgetown and, Georgetown to Croydon. These sections are of no real problem as there is very little passing traffic and all you have to do is drive to the conditions and use common sense.

We made a number of other stops along the way at various points of interest, like the Forty Mile Scrub east of Mount Surprise and the historic Cumberland Mine site west of Georgetown.

Cumberland Mine Site

Old Dam At Cumberland Mine

Old Dam at Cumberland Mine