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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Camped by the Calvert River |
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| 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.
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| A bit of a climb out |
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| 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!!!)
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| 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 20th 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.
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| 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?).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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