Seems like such a long time ago that I last wrote. So much has happened.
Gregory River has to be one of the best (free) camping spots I’ve been to.
We had a great time. Met lovely people, went for walks, swam in the river (with the freshies) 🐊
had beers with other campers at the pub
(and a couple of locals)
and watched the abundant bird life. We were lucky enough to be camped in front of a tree with two Whistling Kite nests. It was fantastic to watch the kites going back and forth feeding their babies.
We spent 3 wonderful days there including attending the Dawn Service in the Memorial Park. Different!
Then on to Lawn Hill. I’d heard various reports about the condition of the road from “it’s bloody terrible” to “take it easy, watch the dips and you’ll be ok”. Yes, I was a bit apprehensive but
it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I had anticipated. In fact, we had driven on a worse road from Hughenden to Torrens Creek. From Gregory through to the Century Mine turnoff was pretty good. From there to the national park it was ok but getting quite corrugated in parts and some ripper dips that needed lots of caution and a speed of around 20kph. The worst part was in the national park where it was very corrugated and very rocky. Our camping neighbours at Lawn Hill had shredded a tyre on the way in and were waiting on the guys at Adel’s Grove to get them another. I didn’t want that happening to us.
We had booked into the NP for 6 nights. The campsite was lovely, well set out with very clean amenities which included flushing toots and cold showers. The showers were bliss after all the heat and dust and, although cold, were more body temperature because of the heat.
Due to some heavy rain and flooding, there was only one big walk that was open as the bridge to the other walks had been damaged so off we went the next day to the Indarri waterfalls
and lookout
Ran into Greg Grainger and crew filming a Travel Oz special. They asked if it was me up top on the lookout. Think I may have a cameo!
I was keen to kayak on the Gorge, however, to do so meant driving in and out of Adel’s Grove which has now been given to, and is being very badly run by, the indigenous locals. That meant driving 10k each way on pretty bad rocky road (so 40k all up), paying $104 ($50 deposit and $54 charge) to get the paddles for a measly 2 hours of kayaking. And, truth be told, the water was pretty slimy and uninviting. We gave it a miss.
The sky at night was quite spectacular and we were lucky enough to have a full moon.
Having done all we could do at Lawn Hill we decided to cut our stay short and move on.
I had heard people rave about Lawn Hill (and Kirsty was one of them) but, to be frank, I was a little bit disappointed. It was certainly beautiful but I wouldn’t rate it in my top ten. Glad I went though.
So let’s head to Normanton. Along the way we saw horses just at the boundary to Lawn Hill station.
Spent the night back at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse where a beer and burger was a real treat. It’s a really good stopover with fuel and cafe and some shady sites for $10 a night, clean toilets and showers plus some super friendly dogs who insisted I throw sticks for them. The only negative was the mosquitoes. Billions of them!
Then off early the next morning to Normanton.