We were heading towards Lawn Hill
National Park today which was around 100kms of dirt road. Josh checked the bike rack to ensure that it
would make it - L
Unfortunately, it was cracked again. We
decided not to risk the dirt road with the bikes on the back, and seeing as
though they had already caused us a lot of grief, we had decided to leave them
in Gregory Downs for a new life. After
unloading them onto the side of the road in town, as per a council worker’s
instructions, we went across the road to fill up fuel. Josh told the young backpacker guy working
here about us leaving the bikes behind and he claimed the two adult ones for
him and his girlfriend. We started along
the slightly corrugated dirt track relieved not to have to worry about these
anymore. It took well over an hour but
the kids and I were doing some origami today to pass the time. Upon arriving, we booked in here to our
unpowered site (they don’t have powered sites at Adels Grove) for two nights
and again, glad that we did. We took the
van to “The Grove” area right alongside the creek that runs through the vanpark
and set up. Fortunately, there were
plenty of trees around creating shade and the van was therefore cool. Adels Grove is a fairly self-sufficient
place, for example they have onsight tents here, a restaurant but you need to
prebook in for meals, a small store with essentials, coffee set up for gold
coin donations and a bar that is opened from 4pm. First thing we did was not head to the
bar!! We took the kids for a swim in the
creek. The water here is very green as
there is a lot of calcium in the water but it makes no difference swimming in
it. The water was pretty fresh but we
kept moving. We hopped out of the
“beach” area and went further up the river to where there is a pontoon out in
the middle. It took the kids a little
while to take the step and jump in as there are freshwater crocodiles in the
river but eventually we all jumped in together and swam across. In fact, we again didn’t spot a croc the
whole time we were here – bugger! After
sitting out on the floating pontoon in the sun and chatting to another couple
from WA for nearly an hour, we jumped back in and swam back for our
towels. It was late in the afternoon by
this time, so we all got dressed and headed up to reception to the bar. Josh enjoyed a cold beer (he ran out of cans
in the van a few days ago) and I had a lovely hot coffee. While sitting at the bar, the owners have a
slide show of their own that runs with pictures of the area and there are
plenty of other travellers to chat too.
We actually got chatting to the barman that works here at Adels and he used
to live at Hobartville, 10 minutes from us near Richmond (how uncanny is that?)
– small world! We had dinner back at the
van and then a quiet night in. All is
good on the road!
It was a little cool when we woke
this morning which meant it was the perfect day to go paddling up the Lawn Hill
Gorge. First up Josh made friends with a
guy chopping down some trees. It turned
out he was a teacher from Mt Isa School of the Air who was on a school
excursion with about 10 kids from year 6.
He offered for us to borrow his canoe to paddle up the Gorge which we
were happy to take him up on – saving ourselves the $100 for the 2 hours of
fun. We loaded the car up with the
paddles and life jackets and set out for the 10 minute drive up the road to the
starting point. After the few arguments
from Zoe about being squished in the seat next to Sami (as expected from her),
we very carefully hopped into our rocking canoe and took off up the stunning
gorge, each trying to pull our weight with the paddling. It took a little while but eventually we all
got on the same page and were stroking in time (after further arguing of
course). Josh was up front, kids in the
middle and I was in the back and we were making a lovely zig-zag up the
waterway, keeping a close eye out for fresh water crocodiles – and again didn’t
see any. The gorge was beautiful – high
orange and red rock faces with small bushes around the bottom area and lovely
green water surrounding our canoe. After
about 30-40 minutes of paddling, we made it to the end of the lower area of the
gorge to Indarri Falls, a couple of small waterfalls that you can swim and play
in. We all went in for a dip before 2
more families arrived in canoes. We had
a quick chat before pulling our canoe out of the water and going for a short
hike to the lookout here at the top of the gorge. It was stunning! It overlooked the lower and upper gorges and
down along the water where we’d just been swimming. After climbing back down we decided that the
upper gorge was going to be much the same as the lower one so spent some more
time swimming before heading back as we didn’t pack our lunch. The water was flowing down river this time so
there was little paddling required – we actually made the kids do most of the
work this time while we sat back and enjoyed the ride. After packing away and heading back to camp
we had a late lunch and went to the bar area again. We happily enjoyed a few drinks and a few
games of Connect4 from behind the bar before again settling in for a quiet
night of dinner and cards.
No comments:
Post a Comment