Lawn Hill (Boodjamulla) National Park

Bit of an epic bringing you this post. The first attempt (a couple of days ago) I walked a couple of km and climbed one of the lookouts at Lawn Hill NP, as the gos was there was a NextG signal there, well they were right, there was a weak signal, and I had got halfway through uploading the photos when the signal decided to disappear!. Oh well, a cold beer and watching the sun go down was reward enough. Adel’s Grove, 10km down the road, was the next go, apparently a sure thing! Out of luck again, but lunch and a couple of beers again meant it wasn’t a dead loss. Now posting this from Burketown, so apologies if it’s all over the place as it’s been over a week since the last post.

The Stockman’s Challenge in Cloncurry wasn’t as exciting as we were expecting, a little bit we saw was just some well mannered horses trotting around a ring full of dirt/dust doing what they were told. So we high-tailed it north through a great section of country to the Burke & Wills roadhouse where we had lunch, country burgers again! We rang through to Lawn Hill NP to see if our site was free a day earlier then we booked but no luck, though Adel’s Grove just 10km had room so we headed there. On the way we passed through Gregory Downs which is no more than an old pub on the beautiful Gregory River, where a heap of people had already setup camp. We pressed on and the road soon turned to dirt and corrugations, so it was time to air down and while doing so a couple of friendly cattle decided to pop over and see what I was up to. We met a couple of road trains on the way into Adel’s Grove and the dust was amazing, which meant stopping completely as we couldn’t see a foot in front of us.

Adel’s Grove is an amazing oasis on Lawn Hill Creek, with the campsites situated under a canopy of Cabbage Palms, huge paperbarks, Leichhardt trees and Cluster Figs. It was a great shady spot and the kids had a swim in the emerald waters. A lot of people prefer Adel’s over camping in the park as there are really shady spots, hot showers, campfires and you’re allowed to fish – did I mention they had a bar! But Lawn Hill NP is also an oasis with the same vegetation, quiet and everything is right outside of your tent, you don’t need to drive anywhere. Our site is ideal as it’s quite sunny, which means the solar panels are out and the beer is being kept cold! Lawn Hill is gotta be up with one of the top five spots we’ve been to, an absolute beauty.

Early yesterday we hired a couple of canoes and headed upstream through the spectacular middle and upper gorges. The kids were rapt as we had to go up a small section of rapids and had to carry the boats from the middle to upper gorges (& back again). We didn’t see any freshwater crocs as hoped, but spotted a few turtles and heaps of fish. We had two tired little paddlers by the time we got back three hours later! There’s also heaps of birdlife up here, of the feathered variety that is, the Great Bowerbird and the Purple-crowned Fairy Wren amongst those spotted.

We’ve nearly done all the walks here, they’ve all been good but the highlight was today walking up to the top gorge, inland on the way up and back along the creek for the return journey. Aside from the great lookouts, the best bit for the kids was seeing a heap of turtles, and then working out they went crazy over the fruit being dropped from the fig trees. We spent half an hour feeding them, along with a decent gathering of fish who also didn’t mind them. The swimming here is also very good, though the kids are worried about the crocs nibbling their toes! The days have been perfect, not a cloud in the sky and around 30 degrees, with the nights being cool, though not arctic like further south. Well time to head off for another swim J

Next day we headed to the south of the park to Riversleigh, one of the major fossil areas in Australia, of the mammal era that is. We then checked out the Gregory Rv and had a quick run past the Riversleigh homestead before heading back to camp. On the way we stopped at one of the billabongs to see if we could spot some turtles and were lucky enough to see two freshwater crocs, the first for our trip.

Today was up early as we were hitting the road. Once we packed up we went off on a walk along Lawn Hill Ck and spotted another freshie, only a little tacker this time, about three feet. Once on the road we had went back through Gregory Downs and stopped at Burketown where we decided to setup camp. The last couple of hours having been spent checking the joint out, including the Albert River and seeing if we could spot a croc – no luck there. From here it’s onto Normanton and Karumba.

Been hot and windy today - over and out.