Dawdling and dancing.

It’s been a while since I put pen to paper (figuratively speaking), and while we haven’t done a lot, we still seem to have done a lot.  These last few weeks have been a bit of a bonus for us, and we’ve used them to enjoy a holiday at the end of our holiday, if you know what we mean.

After leaving the beautiful little town of Elliott Heads (where we thought we’d sell up and move to), we travelled down through the beautiful countryside of the Sunshine Coast hinterland, visiting towns like Childers and Maryborough on the way.  All these towns have wonderful old buildings and a lot have been sympathetically restored.  I love the old Queenslanders. 

We arrived at our next destination, Maroochydore, mid-afternoon, and made our way to where we were going to camp for the next couple of nights.  The Cotton Tree caravan park was a huge place and very busy, and not our normal choice of places to camp, but we were on a mission, and this was going to be necessary.  We did, however, by a stroke of luck, manage to snaffle the best site on the park, a little bit cut off from the others, right on the edge of the beach, so if we turned our chairs towards the sea, we could pretend that we were all on our own.  We arrived on Thursday afternoon and enjoyed a walk along the beach before finding great fish and chips for tea.

View from our campsite at Maroochydore

Friday morning we had an appointment and we set off early to make sure we were on time.  You might be wondering what that would be…… here’s a hint.

Maybe not this one!!

I said we’d been doing a lot of planning for the future, and those plans now include moving from our beloved Ultimate camper to a caravan.  This is a good way off yet, and we hope to enjoy our camper for a good few years to come, but we’re now in planning phase for the next stage in our lives, and while we were in the area, we came to visit and tour the manufacturer of the best off-road caravans in Australia.

We spent a really interesting morning at the Bushtracker factory, and were well impressed with the build quality and detail that goes into these RVs.  Armed with lots of information, floor plans and pricing guides we went off and had a lovely lunch and poured over everything and put together our “wish list”.    We’ll spend a long time researching and trawling round the shows before making any firm decisions, but once you see how Bushtrackers are made, you can’t really compare apples with apples.

Unbeknownst to us, this weekend was a sort of long weekend in Queensland (student-free day on the Monday) and a lot of Brisbane families had obviously taken the opportunity to have a fun weekend by the beach, as when we arrived back at camp, the park was even busier than before, and they continued to arrive until well after tea time.  Thank goodness we were leaving the next day.

There was a bit of rain through the night, and it was nice to lie and listen to it on the canvas.  It had all but cleared by morning, and we were able to pack an almost-dry camper away.  With no real plan in mind, apart from to by-pass Brisbane, we headed off.  We travelled south-west and made for the Granite Belt region of southern Queensland, and the little town of Stanthorpe.  We had read that it was a great area for foodies, with lots of wineries and other local producers, so we thought we’d spend a day or so there.

We only went in to taste!!!

We spent the afternoon doing one of their planned tourist drives, which takes in various stops along the way including several wineries, a cheese factory and the local brewery.  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, and we picked up provisions for our dinner along the way.  When it came time to camp for the night, we relied on our new friend, Wikicamps, which led us to a small farm, about 20km outside Stanthorpe, which grew lavender.  The farmer welcomes campers in his front paddock and even provides hot showers and toilets, and a fire pit with wood supplied.  What a fabulous place, and Peter and his wife Tere were really friendly hosts who couldn’t do enough for us.  They even shared their dog with us for the night. 

First fire in months

We called him Ben but his name was actually Tallis

 

Mind you, we needed that firewood, as the farm was at 1270m elevation, and the evening turned into a very chilly one.  But we were kept warm by the fire before nodding off to sleep (probably soothed by the smell of all that lavender in the air).

Fields and fields of lavender

Sunday dawned a beautiful, crisp, clear morning and we took our time packing up, enjoying a coffee beside the fire.  We said our goodbyes, especially to Tallis the dog, and headed back on the road south.  Continuing our theme of yesterday, we did some more wandering in the Granite Belt, taking in another winery (this time with a cheese factory attached), a jam factory, a candle maker and a soap maker.  We then moved into northern NSW, to the town of Tenterfield, and took in the sights of all things “Peter Allen”.  There is a lot more to Tenterfield, but they do love their most famous son.

A bit further down the road, we found another good stop for the night thanks to Wikicamps.  In a little place called Deepwater, the local pub recently burned down.  And the owners have now moved the bar into a temporary building (read, shed) next to where the pub is slowly being rebuilt.  To try and encourage a bit of trade, the owners have opened up the field at the back of the pub to campers for free.  We gladly stopped for the night, and were only too happy to buy a beer or two in the pub to help out.  They’ve got a long way to go, but they’re putting their hearts and souls into the rebuild, so we wish them well.  If you’re ever passing, be sure to drop by for a swift half.

We were on our way early again the next morning, this time heading for the beautiful town of Glen Innes.  It’s Celtic Country up here and they love all things Scottish.  Farms and properties have Scottish names, as do streets and businesses and they have recently celebrated something called the Beardy Festival (we have yet to find out what that was).  We had a stroll along the restored main street of Glen Innes admiring the lovely old buildings and grabbing a few supplies at the supermarket.  Moving on, we really enjoyed travelling through the beautiful, green New England countryside, and we arrived in Armidale for a great lunch at a local café.

Great letter box on the way to Armidale

The lady in the tourist office was very enthusiastic and armed us with lots of information on the local national parks, and with that, we headed off to find our camp for the night, at Tia Falls, part of the Oxley Wild Rivers NP.   The campground at Tia Falls is small, and we arrived late afternoon and were pleased that there was only a couple of other vehicles there.  We set up, and quickly got a fire going – that 1300m altitude sure makes it cold when the sun goes down.  We were looking forward to a slow day the next day, enjoying some sunshine, and taking in a couple of the walks in the area, so we toddled off to bed early, and snuggled down under the duvet.

You can imagine the disappointment the next morning when we got up the campground was shrouded in mist and it was drizzly rain and cold.  This hadn’t factored in our plans at all.  I guess we weren’t used to weather being anything but perfect.  So after a slow start by the fire (the rain kind of eased a bit), we decided to head off walking anyway.  We walked to the Tia Falls lookout first, which showed a reasonably spectacular waterfall, flowing down into a long deep gorge.  Remember, we’ve just been in the top end, so gorges and waterfalls have to be pretty good to rate a “spectacular” now.  But it was a lovely gorge, and disappeared in the distance with the hills fading in the mist.

Tia Falls

The Tia River above the falls

We later took the Tiara Gorge walk, which skirted alongside the river before it went over the falls, and then we walked along the western rim of the gorge to look back on the falls.  It was a lovely walk, and we were rewarded with some great views.

Tiara Gorge

By the time we returned to camp it was lunch time.  The weather had cleared up a bit, but we were going to have to be content with a day of grey skies and a sharp wind, which made the temperature feel decidedly cold.  Instead of enjoying a day relaxing in the sun, we spent it huddled beside the fire.  But it was still relaxing anyway.

We could have spent another day at Tia Falls if the weather had been better, but the next day was pretty much a mirror image of the previous one, so we packed up that morning and headed back to the main road.  From there we wandered down back roads (albeit pretty rough ordinary roads) to the small town of Gloucester.  We travelled very far from our camp before the weather started to improve.  It was just cloudy and cold on that mountain. 

View over Tia Falls

We stopped at Gloucester for morning tea and a wander and picked up some of the “second best sausages in NSW” from the local butcher. 

From Gloucester it seemed a naturally progression to move east to the coast, to the town of Forster (pronounced Foster).  This is one of those twin town things, with Forster on one side of the inlet and Tuncurry on the other.  We stopped again for some information at the Visitors Centre, not sure if we were going to stay here or move on further, and were greeted with a notice outside saying that The Cat Empire was playing one show in town that night.  We enquire inside the centre about this and the people couldn’t have been more helpful, organising tickets for us, telling us where to get a meal, and suggesting a caravan park for us.  It seemed we were staying in Forster, and our evening’s entertainment was sorted.

We did indeed have a fantastic night in Forster.  We stayed at Lani’s caravan park (thoroughly recommended), and the club where the band was playing ran a courtesy bus which picked us up and brought us home.  We enjoyed a fabulous Thai meal at the club, and spend a good couple of hours dancing to The Cat Empire.  So much for easing ourselves back into civilisation slowly!!!  But you couldn’t let a chance like that go by, could you?

Cat Empire on stage

Couldn't resist

Seal Rocks was our next destination, only about 50km down the coast.  This is a beautiful little area adjacent to the national park, where we camped just 100m or so from the beach.  It was a wild beach and we didn’t fancy battling the waves, so we were content to spend an afternoon walking along and skimming stones.

Skimming stones at Seal Rocks

 

They get big waves here.

The next morning we had to retrace our steps back out from Seal Rocks and point the car in the direction of Sydney.  Since we had some extra time on our hands, we decided to spend a few days in Sydney, catching up with some of my relatives.  Most of them are fairly elderly now so it’s nice to see them, and to know they’re still doing well.  So for the last few days we have been welcomed into houses all round Sydney and fed copious amounts of food.  Each evening we return to camp saying we won’t eat again, but manage to fit more in the next day.  We haven’t done any of the usual touristy things while we’ve been here, as we’ve done all that in the past.  It’s just nice spending some time with family.

My cousin Chris and her husband Scott

So now it’s our last week, and we will make our way slowly home.  The boys have had the “1 week warning” and Liam says he has commenced the “big clean”.  It’ll be so nice to be home and see everyone again.  We’re even not dreading returning to work.

But we’ve still got a few days to go, so it’s not over till the fat lady sings.

See you all soon.  xxx

The good news is it’s a bit cooler………..the bad news is it’s a bit cooler!

It’s been a while, and we’ve covered a bit of ground since I last posted and our last few weeks on the road haven’t turned out like we originally planned.  Not that that’s a bad thing – just different.  Because of various alterations to our plans earlier on in the trip (e.g. not going up to Kalumbaru and not visiting the Cobourg Peninsula), we’re left with a bit more time at the end.  It was originally planned that we would be making a quick dart through western Queensland and down through New South Wales and heading home pretty quickly.  However we now have the luxury of a couple of extra weeks up our sleeves and we have headed for the coast in QLD to try and escape the heat and dust.

Travelling down through the Gulf the weather was hot and the land was drying up at the end of the dry season, but it was still beautiful.  Camped beside the river at Gregory Downs was wonderful and we understood why a few of the people we spoke to had set up there for several weeks.  It would be easy to do, especially since it was free.  But we packed up reluctantly and headed south-east, making for the small town of Julia Creek for the night. 

By way of an 80km or so detour, we came through the tiny town of McKinlay.  Nothing here at all except the pub.  And what a famous pub it is – used in the filming of that now classic film, Crocodile Dundee.  I struggled to accept it was the same pub, as it didn’t look quite the same, but we saw from the photos inside that they had added another facia on the front, which made it look a bit different.  Inside there were many photos and pieces of memorabilia on show from the days of filming and of course, the mural on the end wall.  We also learned that it had recently sold to its new owners for the princely sum of $1.2 million.  A pretty good price for a pub in the middle of nowhere!!

Walkabout Creek Hotel, McKinlay

Never go out with them, if you do you'll never come back.

Julia Creek is one of those towns that has a main street and not much else, but it’s a pretty main street and the community are making such an effort to welcome visitors that we appreciated what they had to offer.  They have set up a free campground on the outskirts of the town (no facilities), on Julia Creek, so we gladly set up there for the night.  It was still around the 39 degree mark in the afternoon, so we headed for the local swimming pool and took advantage of a swim and a shower for the tidy sum of $1.60.

Since it was approaching beer o’clock we took ourselves to the pub for one or two on the way home.  Sunday night special in the bistro was $15 roast beef and roast vegies!  How could we refuse!!  And it was also the night of the NRL Grand Final so we stayed to watch the Bunnies trounce the Doggies.  All in all, a great night.

Julia Creek also has a wonderful new visitor information centre set up in some old fettlers’ cottages on the main street, with an interactive walkway and a live display of the recently discovered new species, the Julia Creek Dunnart.  It also has several cafes and a great library that does book exchanges.  All this would have been brilliant, except it was a public holiday in QLD (not something we knew) and everything was shut!!  We had been bush for a few weeks and had promised ourselves a good coffee and raisin toast in the café for breakfast that day and we were really looking forward to it.  Imagine the disappointment, but we were rescued by the local supermarket owner, whose store was open for a couple of hours and who made a surprisingly good coffee!

After chatting to him for a while we were on our way again, making the journey a bit further east to Winton.  Driving down through cattle country is really a sad experience.  The Gulf country further north was dry, as you’d expect at this time of year, but you knew that the wet season was coming and it would bring it to life again.  Here in the western part of QLD they have been suffering drought for some time and everything is beyond brown, its grey and all has turned to dust.  And this goes on for as far as you can see.  We arrived in Winton mid-afternoon and drove around a bit trying to find a spot to camp.  All the waterholes and creeks had dried up, and camping beside those was not going to be a pleasant experience.  We ended up staying in one of the caravan parks in town for a couple of nights, as it was the best of a bad lot of options.

Winton is the dinosaur capital of Australia, with the discovery of more fossilised remains of dinosaurs in the area around here than anywhere else on the continent.  We set off the next morning to visit The Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum, established on one of the local properties to showcase what had already been discovered, but it’s also a working laboratory, continually finding and preparing more remains.  They have racks and racks of bones extracted from the surrounding area, waiting the painstaking process of preparing them for the museum.  Enough work for the next 30 years they say.

Banjo - the sculpture

Banjo - the skeleton

Rows and rows of old bones

It takes months to chip away the rock from the bones

 

The afternoon was spent touring the other sights of downtown Winton.  After lunch we took in the Waltzing Matilda Centre, a whole visitor centre and museum dedicated to the famous song, penned by Banjo Patterson at a nearby station.  The claim is also that the first ever performance of this iconic song was in the North Gregory Hotel in Winton’s main street. 

Everyone loves the swagman!

 

We then had a walk around town taking in other heritage sites such as Arno’s Wall.  Someone called Arno built this wall around his property, running for 70 metres or so and included all sorts of junk in it, including the kitchen sink.  Not sure why, but it’s on the list of “must-sees” in Winton.

Arno's Wall

The caravan park was beside the main road, so lots of road trains slowing down as they came into town meant noise through the night, but not as bad as we were expecting (and not as bad as our camp spot in Emerald, but more on that later).  And it was lovely to be visited by two brolgas in the afternoon, just as tame as anything, coming strolling through the campground. 

 

But by far our most welcome visitor (well, by me anyway) was the ginger cat who adopted us during our stay there.  We christened him Boris, and he was very affectionate and contentedly curled up beside my chair in the evening, and was still there the next day.  It would have been nice to offer the poor little stray a home, but not practical.  So we said goodbye to Boris when we left and told him to be careful of the road trains.

The journey east continued, with our next planned stop to be Longreach.  More miles and miles of open, grey countryside.  I don’t know what those poor cattle have to eat in those paddocks; maybe they don’t.  Maybe the farmers are feeding them.  So sad.

 

Longreach is a pretty town, but again we struggled to find somewhere to camp that wasn’t a dust bowl.  This time even the caravan parks were dire (and not cheap) so we decided we’d spend a few hours in town, and then move further on towards Barcaldine.  There’s plenty to do in Longreach, with the Outback Hall of Fame and the QANTAS Museum, and also a pretty main street.  We had lunch and wandered for a while, but decided that we would be back in Longreach sometime, so skipped the big touristy things.  It was noticeable, travelling another 100km or so east, that suddenly the countryside didn’t seem quite so dry, that there was a bit of green about.

At Barcaldine, we found a pretty camp spot on the Alice River, about 15km or so out of town, and settled in there for the night.  And that night we were treated to an uninterrupted view of the total lunar eclipse that happened on the full moon.  We have seen four full moons rise now on our journey, and this one was the best yet.

The next morning we packed up and made our way back into town and took some time to wander the main street of Barcaldine.  It’s another pretty little town, and the main street is dominated by the monument to the Tree of Knowledge, where it was said that the very beginnings of the Australian Labour Party took place.  The monument is a very confronting piece of architecture, and I’m not altogether sure it fits in with the rest of the town, but you can’t dispute that it is impressive, and beautifully done, with the centrepiece being the (now dead) old tree, and the ceiling above covered in hanging “leaves” which are wooden wind chimes, that tinkle away constantly.  Very clever.

The Tree of Knowledge monument

After leaving Barcaldine, we travelled through the greener countryside, heading for the town of Emerald.  It seemed the natural place to stop on our journey east to the coast, so we set about trying to find somewhere to camp in town.  Our source said there was free camping beside the Botanic Gardens in Emerald, so we thought that would be great.  A nice walk through the gardens into the town – what could be better?  The camp spot turned out to be right beside the Botanic Gardens alright, but also right beside the main road out of town, and right under the railway bridge!  Oh well, it was only for one night.  We set up camp and headed off to explore the town.

Turns out there wasn’t much to explore.  Emerald is a service town to all the surrounding properties, and does that job well.  It’s just there’s not much else for visitors to do.   A visit to the Big Sunflowers filled in some time (apparently the area used to produce sunflowers, so someone thought it would be a good idea to recreate Van Gogh’s Sunflowers 25 metres tall).  

We then returned to camp and sat and read under the shade of lovely big trees in the gardens.  The plan of heading east to escape the heat was working; the temperature in Emerald was only 34 that day.

I haven’t counted yet how many different campsites we’ve had along the way this trip, but it’s been a few.  There’s been wonderful open skies in the desert, the beaches of the Dampier Peninsula, the ranges in the Kimberley etc etc, but our camp under the railway bridge at Emerald will always be something we look back on – and laugh!!!  If the noise from the road trains wasn’t bad enough (although that did die down in the middle of the night), we were wakened by the toot of an oncoming train, that thundered only metres over our heads for what seemed a very long time.  So ridiculous it was funny! 

The next morning we awoke to something completely foreign – grey skies.  We were so used to brilliant blue skies every morning, it felt very strange.  And just in case those grey skies decided to offer some showers, we decided we’d better get the windscreen wiper blade that had broken a few weeks earlier changed.  So after a quick visit to Repco on the way out of town, we were on the road again, heading to Rockhampton.  Goodbye Emerald, and thanks for the memories!!

After free camping for a few days, we needed showers, so headed straight for a nice caravan park in the banks of the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton.  We arrived early afternoon, and set up camp, with wonderful green grass underfoot, lovely tropical gardens surrounding us and the cooler temperatures of a 29 degree day.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens and Zoo, a lovely way to spend the afternoon, and took ourselves out for a steak dinner that night in the “Beef Capital of Australia”.

A furry inhabitant of Rockhampton zoo

Big Pony-Tail palms up here.

Sunday was another lovely day and we headed off to visit the nearby town of Yeppoon on the coast.  A TV ad years ago, “one of these things went off a few years ago in Yeppoon, blew a bloody big hole in a Torana”, tickled Doug, and when he saw that we were nearby, we had to make a visit to Yeppoon.  It turns out that this was the weekend of Pinefest in Yeppoon, a celebration of all things pineapple (one of the biggest local crops).  We took in the local community market first, which meant I was able to stock up on some lovely organic fruit and veg, and then we parked up on the Esplanade, and sauntered around, looking at shops, taking in the atmosphere and we enjoyed a great morning tea in a local whole-food café, yum! 

Yeppoon is a lovely little town situated on Keppel Bay, and looking out to Great Keppel Island and beyond. 

Great Keppel Island

Our drive back took us further down the coast, and we stopped in to check out the millions and millions of dollars of marine craft at Rosslyn Harbour.  I’m glad we’re not into boating – it seems to be an expensive hobby.

The Singing Ship monument to Captain Cook near Yeppoon

We arrived back in Rockhampton in the afternoon, and spent some time walking through the heritage area along the river.  There’s some beautiful old stone buildings in that precinct – and then we took ourselves back to the park to sit in the shade and read our books.  That night the bowling club around the corner was our chosen destination for dinner, with an all-you-can-eat buffet for $15.  Yep, there’s a reason it was only $15!  Enough said!!!

With the temperatures now reaching a pleasant 27-29 degrees each day, our spirits have been restored, and we are now soaking up the sun at a little place south of Bundaberg called Elliott Heads, where the Elliott River meets the sea.  We are only metres away from a beautiful beach and only 15 minutes’ drive to Bundaberg. 

Our beach

Early morning walk

We’ve been here for three days already and love the area enough that we feel we could move up here and live.  We’ve done the touristy things that Bundaberg has to offer, and they’re pretty good.  We took a tour of the Bundaberg Ginger Beer factory, and of course, a visit to the 125 year old Bundaberg Rum Distillery.  Both places offered really good tours to the public and a visit to the gift shop afterwards helped to part us from a few dollars.

Ginger Beer factory

Tasting the rum at the distillery

Today we’re just sticking close to camp, getting caught up with washing, blogging and perhaps I’ll make a curry!  You see the hard decisions I have to make?  Doug is away walking on the beach and I’m sitting enjoying the beautiful sunshine.  This place is fantastic – and real estate is cheap (hmmm plenty of food for thought!!!)  Although the evenings are getting a bit cooler now too, with long sleeves needed the last couple of nights, and the duvet making a reappearance after a couple of months of being pushed aside.

I’ve seen a report on the news today of terrible storms and weather around Sydney and the Blue Mountains.  Tell me again why we’re travelling south?  Oh that’s right, because we’ve only got just over two weeks to go.  I’m not sure how we’ll adjust to being back in reality again, but we’re not looking forward to it.  Oh well, I’d better get back to working on the tan while I can.

A lot can happen in a week.

Written Saturday 4^th October 2014.

We left off last time camped at Katherine Gorge.  Although a truly beautiful place, it’s probably our least favourite destination on our trip so far.  Katherine Gorge is one of the region’s premier tourist destinations, and they certainly know how to part the tourist from their dollars!

The campground, even though it was within a national park, was over the top, with pool, restaurant and bar and rows and rows of small powered sites just made for the hordes of rented motorhomes and campervans that poured into the place.  But it was close to the gorge and we managed to tuck ourselves away in a wee unpowered corner and watched the Agile wallabies who were showing no fear.  We had decided to move on the next day, after we’d visited the gorge.

Some of the sea of rented campervans

The Katherine River forms a series of 13 gorges and from what we saw (only going into the first two) they were pretty spectacular.  The options for viewing the park are a series of long strenuous walks, a boat cruise or by canoe.  We chose the last one, and arrived at the boat ramp early to try and beat the crowds and the heat.  We succeeded on dodging the heat, but not the crowds.  Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t peak season, and there weren’t that many people there, but after having so many of the fabulous places on our trip to ourselves, we found the 40 or so people lining up for the early morning cruise a bit crowd-like!  There were about 10 canoes out with us too, but we all spread out after taking off, so it wasn’t too bad. 

Canoeing up Katherine Gorge

The paddle to the end of the first gorge took about an hour, and we arrived at a sandy rock bar, where the rest of the crowds had gathered.  From here you were able to walk over the rocks and collect another canoe, and carry on into the second gorge.  This is where the cruise ends too, and there were handrails, gazebos, tour guides and people!!!  Just all too contrived and touristy for our liking.  Sounds bad of me I know, but give me the unspoilt wilderness any day.

After arriving back at the boat ramp after our canoe trip, we grabbed lunch in the café (yes, I know……… hypocrite or what??) and then packed up the camper and headed back into Katherine to get last minute supplies and then headed south to Mataranka.

Mataranka is a tiny town about 100km south of Katherine, right on the edge of Elsey National Park.  The town is famous for being the gateway to the hot springs within the park, and we’d heard great things about this place.  We found a spot to camp near Bitter Springs, set up the camper then headed off to spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the water.

Bitter Springs is a permanent thermal spring that flows gently through the park.  Part of it is made safe from crocs and you can grab your noodle and jump in the crystal clear, warm water at one point, and spend about 15 minutes floating gently down the creek, to get out, walk back and do it all over again!  It was wonderful to watch the wildlife above and below the water as we drifted slowly along.  What a great afternoon we had there, before heading back to camp.

Next morning, after we packed up, we visited the Elsey Homestead just on the outskirts of the national park.  Elsey Station was the home of Jeannie Gunn, the author of the classic “We of the Never Never.”  The homestead was a recreation, built for the movie and is now preserved for visitors.  It further provides proof that living in the outback in those days would have been damned hard.

Elsey Homestead

We topped up with fuel then turned off the highway and pointed the car east, heading for Roper Bar.  We were now back on the Savannah Way, the route that goes from Broome to Cairns, and we were heading out to the Gulf of Carpentaria through the savannah country.  Our original plan was to drive so far, then find a camp spot, and continue the journey to Lorella Springs the next day, but the road was in better condition that we thought, and we decided to push on to Lorella in one day.  So after about 7 hours or corrugations, we pulled up at the bar (well, tin shed) at our base for the next few days.

 

Lorella is a cattle station of one million acres, and is run by Rhett Walker, his kids and his partner Marie.  They’re a fabulous family that are diversifying into tourism and have opened their back yard to visitors.  They are really trying hard to make a go of the place, and have opened up wonderful parts of the property for people to enjoy.  It’s a vast station, and you’re welcome to go and camp anywhere on it, so getting away from everything is easy.

Lookout on the edge of the clouds

We spent our time at Lorella relaxing, enjoying drives to outlying gorges where we canoed up until we bottomed out, climbing up to swim in the top pools of waterfalls that had stopped flowing, ending our days floating in more thermal pools and having a great chat with fellow campers at the bar during happy hour.  Unfortunately, again because it’s so late in the season, the property is drying up quickly and some of the best places to visit weren’t at their best, but that’s ok.  We only just scratched the surface of Lorella, and know we’ll be back.

Hidden Pools - top pool of three

We continued east after leaving Lorella, and made for the small town of Borroloola for lunch and to take on more fuel.  From there we were heading for the Queensland border and about 3pm started looking for somewhere to camp for the night.  We poked our nose down several tracks as we drove along until we found the perfect spot.  And perfect it was (almost).  We wound our way down a steep, rocky track to emerge at a small, grassy area on the banks of the Calvert River.  It was just heaven.  The only drawback was the knowledge that there could be salties in the river, so swimming definitely was out, and I have to admit to being a bit nervous near the edge of the water.

Camped by the Calvert River

 

The view from my window early in the morning

 

Not nervous enough though to stop me from trying out the fishing rod that I had, up till now, carried without using.  It was time it got a workout!!!

Well what a success that was – not!  Half a dozen casts, and I’d lost two lures, snagged on the rocks on the bottom!  I gave that up as a bad joke and packed my little rod away again.  Maybe next time – or maybe I need a few lessons.

We weren’t too keen to leave the next morning, but we needed to keep going.  After climbing back out the rocky track we’d come in, we continued east, crossing the border into Queensland, and stopping at Hell’s Gate Roadhouse for morning tea.  In early times the police would seemingly patrol up to that point but go no further west, saying the lawlessness and criminal behaviour of those living there made their job impossible – hence the name. 

A bit of a climb out

 

The roadhouse in the middle of nowhere

 

From Hell’s Gate we soon turned south and started heading down through cattle country to make our way to Lawn Hill National Park.  The roads through the stations were interesting to say the least, and on many occasions the camper disappeared behind us is an explosion of bulldust.  And it was the journey of a thousand gates (well, at least 16!!!)

I'd lost count by this time

You can camp at the national park, but the campground is a bit open and dusty, and we had been recommended to head for Adel’s Grove, a private campground nearby.  It was a bit of paradise itself, being right on the banks of the Lawn Hill Creek, which meant swimming was close at hand, and the campground was set in a thick grove of trees, which gave total shade, very welcome on a 38 degree day.  The property had once belonged to a botanist who had been commissioned in the early 20^th century to research and experiment with exotic fruit trees.  He had established the most wonderful garden, but sadly, a fire in the early 1950’s destroyed his buildings and all his records and notes and part of the grove.  He never recovered from the destruction of his life’s work, and slid into depression and died not long after.  The property has changed hands several times since then, but no one continued the work that he had started and slowly the old fruit trees have succumbed to the termites and there’s not many left.  We camped under a couple of the remaining mango trees and were sorry that the fruit on them wasn’t ready for picking.

Paradise.  Lawn Hill Gorge all to ourselves

The campground was reasonably quiet, but we decided to head up to the gorge early the next morning to explore and hopefully dodge other campers.  Lawn Hill Gorge was another of my bucket list things to do, and the best way to explore it is by canoe.  We set off up the gorge in our rented canoe by 8.30am and we were happy to learn that we were the only ones on the river at that time.  It took us about half an hour to reach the first waypoint of our trip, Indarri Falls.  This pretty, low-level waterfall is probably the most famous part of the national park, and we were disappointed to see, when we arrived, that a couple of people had walked in before us and were enjoying a swim.  We lucked out on getting the place to ourselves (I know we have high expectations, but you can hope, can’t you?).

Part of Indarri Falls

So with hope springing eternal, we dragged the canoe the 30 metres or so up the ramp and then over the rocks to launch it in the upper gorge.  Now we really did have the place to ourselves.  We carried on heading upstream for another half hour or so, until the river narrowed, and the water lilies got thicker, and we finally came to the place where the little creeks all flowed in, forming a pool and series of small waterfalls.

 

 

We stopped here, dragged the canoe up onto the bank and spent a wonderful hour swimming, riding the small currents and feeding the many fish who were curious about who had invaded their quiet spot.

More swimming with the fishes

We eventually headed back downstream, making our way back through the beautiful gorge.  This would probably be our last gorge on our trip, and we had seen so many wonderful ones, but I think we saved the best one till last.  At the ramp to slide the canoe back down to the lower gorge we met a family who had just dragged themselves back out of the water after tipping their canoe.  Lunch, camera, phone, everything was now at the bottom of the river.  I’m glad we invested in a dry sack!

After we got back we decided to take a walk along the base of the cliff face to where there was some rock art.  Different again from other sites we had seen in other areas but none the less humbling when you think how old some of it is.

It was hot by this time, so the cool waters of the creek back at camp were calling and we spent a very pleasant afternoon alternatively swimming and reading.  Ah, it’s a hard life!!! 

 

We’re now camped beside the Gregory River, at Gregory Downs.  We left Adel’s Grove yesterday morning, and made the 90km trip (just a short trip this time) to arrive mid-morning and grab the most perfect spot along the banks of the river, far enough away from the dozen or so other campers to make us feel we’re on our own.  This is a long weekend in Queensland so we were worried in the case the place filled up with people, but so far, it hasn’t been too bad. 

Our camp at Gregory Downs

The Gregory River, just a bit upstream from our camp is wide and slow and lovely and cool (Yay! – safe for swimming) and then it narrows and gets shallower as it races through pebbly channels and provides hours of fun floating down, getting out, walking back and doing it all again.  Or you could be like me, and just plonk down in the shallows, and enjoy watching.

Got a bit shallow in places and Doug found the bottom!!

We were only going to stop for the one night here before slowly starting our journey back to Melbourne, but we are loving it, and another day won’t hurt.

We've lost count of the books we've read

We now only have four weeks left of our trip and although I miss my family and my friends very much, I’m not ready to go home.  We’ve met and chatted with a few fellow travellers who are on the road full-time and we can see us doing that sometime, so as you can imagine, some of our after-dinner discussions are now taken up with future plans.  It’s always good to have something to work towards, isn’t it?

In the meantime, I think it’s time I started reading my next book.