24 August 2010
Up early again and on the road looking for mobile reception. We reached Normanton and there was reception there but nowhere to stop in the shade and work so we decided to keep going to Karumba which turned out to be a great little riverside town right near the ocean. There was a lovely shady spot right next to the Information Centre where I stopped to finally do some work!
Would you believe it - there were brolgas just hanging around the town like every other bird - couldn't believe it - I thought they were solirary shy birds!
I finished up work and we decided to have a look around town. We have pretty much come to the conclusion that the people in the Information Centres aren't very informative when it comes to free campers, which I can't blame them for I guess. We were told that there was no free camping at all in the area and the Ranger moved everybody on who tried. There are three caravan parks here and they all seemed pretty busy so I guess they don't need free campers like us hanging around. Problem is that we can't afford to pay to stay in a caravan park as well as spend any money in the town!
We were driving away from the Karumba Point area when I spotted what I thought was a horse stuck in a bog in a paddock. I could see it trying to get up and it was obviously in great distress so we turned around and headed back to the servo to let the people there know and they made some phone calls and got onto the police, etc. We went back out to see if we could help the horse and I walked over to it while Ross stayed with the car to tell the rescurers where to go. When I arrived at the horse it turns out it wasn't stuck in the mud, it was starving to death instead and had obviously fallen over and couldn't get up again. It had blood running out of its mouth where it had injured itself trying to get up and it had bones sticking out everywhere - it was just a skeleton! I was very distressed and went back to the road to meet the police who had just arrived and the owner of the paddock next door who said that there were a bunch of wild horses living in that paddock that nobody looked after and he thought it was just an old horse that had just gotten too old and needed putting down. I could see the sense in that but it didn't change the fact that it was a very horrible experience but I did feel good that we had gotten to it early enough that someone could put the poor thing out of its misery rather than let it die a slow death.
That kinda killed the mood for the afternoon. We did go into the tackle shop back in town and the lady there was very helpful (me still blubbering over the horse) and gave us some tips on how to catch barra but we didn't really have the energy for it by then. She also told us about Walkers Creek nearby that we could camp at for free so we headed there and set up camp for the night. We went for a bit of a walk for a look around and spotted our first croc for the trip. It was only a little freshie but it was a croc!! We put the yabbie traps in but didn't hold out much hope as it looks like a fairly well-used campsite and we reckon plenty of people would have the same idea.
We got to know our new neighbours - Pete and Mary and Phil and Maryanne who were great company and we spent the evening chatting to them.
25 August 2010
I got up and did some work and we decided to have a day off and do nothing, though I was still keen to go barra fishing.
Ross went down and checked the yabbie nets and found the biggers cherabin we had ever seen in it!! He put it in one of those big white washing pails and its body reached right across – that’s a big cherabin!! Unfortunately it was the only one so we put him back hoping to catch more tonight.
After I finished work we took the fishing lines down to the creek and joined Pete and Phil for a spot of fishing and introduced Pete to our Chux cheese which he tried out and no sooner did he put some on as bait than he started getting nibbles and not long after landed a fish!! Neither Ross or I could catch one – what’s the deal there??
It was pretty hot by lunchtime so after lunch we wandered down to the water and threw the lines in and sat in the cool for a while but the fish weren’t biting so we got bored and decided to go for a walk along the river bank. It’s a nice enough spot but nothing too exciting where we are camped. However, we soon realised that we were sitting on an absolute gem!! Being dry season there is not too much water around though where we have been camped it is a fairly sizeable creek which we presumed kept going further on but when we started walking, the water finished not far from where we were and then broke off into smaller pools of water, leaving the creekbed dry to walk on. The wonderful part was that it was like walking into an enchanted forest right out of a story book!! The trees had so much shape and character that you expected them to just up and start talking to you!! Walking through the dappled shade from those trees was just glorious with long corridors of trees where the water must go down in the wet season. There was even a few trees that had hundreds of butterflies around them and when you walked through the butterflies started floating around your head – wow – it’s amazing what beauty you can find in such a harsh area!!
After dinner we sat down and talked with our neighbours again, swapping stories and had a lovely evening again – tough life!!
26 August 2010
We packed up and left camp after I worked for the morning - we had one last go at catching an elusive barra in the creek before we left but no luck - oh well!! It had gotten quite windy overnight.
On we went until we reached the Albert River just this side of Burketown. We found a nice little spot to make camp for the night and then went for a bit of a walk to introduce ourselves to our neighbours. Turned out they were expert barra fishermen and they were more than happy to share information on how to catch them - yay!! They even gave us some tracer line because we didnt have any and they reckoned you need heavy tracer line so they dont snap your line. We went back to camp to try our luck with our new knowledge but couldnt catch much in the way of bait so we didnt last long. It had also become very windy and gusty, making it very unpleasant.
27 August 2010
I got up and did some work and then we went into Burketown and decided that we would go out to Lawn Hill. Some campers we had met at Leichardt Lagoon told us about Adels Grove who allow dogs and even look after your dog for the day while you go into the National Park. We rang up and booked and were on our way. The road in was quite good. We got to Gregory Downs which is a very tiny town with not much other than a pub and no mobile reception. We got out and had lunch and had a bit of a look around and decided to go down to the river where we came upon quite a surprise - a lovely free camping area with probably about 20 or more vans camped right on the beautiful Gregory River!! We had a wander around and came across a couple we had met earlier at Leighcardt Lagoon who had little twin boys. We got talking and the offered to look after Boris for the day if we wanted to go into Lawn Hill, rather than paying for a caravan park at Adels Grove. We were very tempted but as there was no mobile reception I couldnt have done my work so we reluctantly declined and thought we might get back there later.
On we went to Adels Grove and found it to be another lovely paradise in a very dry, dusty landscape. We had a swim, had some showers, talked to some of the people we met along the track to and from the showers - for some reason we had been put at the very furtherest campsite, away from EVERYONE!! I know we were in the dog area but there were other dogs there and they weren't nearly as far away as we were!! We headed down to the eating area for a drink at the bar and caught up with the people we had talked to on the track again and had a lovely evening chatting away and swapping stories - they are from WA and are going in the opposite direction to us so its interesting to know what to look forward to on our way west.
28 August 2010
I got up early and did my work before we headed off to Lawn Hill, leaving Boris very upset with us for leaving him behind at the camp.
We weren't really sure what to expect - how far we were going to be walking, etc so we packed our lunch and some water in the backpack and headed off. We could have hired canoes for $40 but we couldnt see the value in it. We also could have lugged our boat down to the gorge but it looked like it would have been a bit of a struggle to get it down there so we decided to walk. Well, it lived up to all of our expectations - what a beautiful place!! I reckon if someone wanted to do a movie and was looking for the perfect paradise they should go there!! We had a wonderful day walking around, chatting to different people we met along the way, taking millions of photos, etc, etc. I think we ended up walking about 10 ks in the end - up and down the gorge - we were bushed by the end of it!! I think next time we went we would do the rest of the walking tracks and even take the canoes or the boat down the gorge - it would be good to see it from both angles.
Back to Adels Grove to pick up Boris and have a swim and then we headed out again - we were tempted to camp on the creek just outside of Adels Grove but it is actually somebody's property and even though it looks like people do camp there sometimes we thought we had better not. We also werent getting good enough reception for me to do any work.
We decided to go out the Doomadgee road which was quite a good dirt road though there were heaps of gates I had to get out and open!! We finally got mobile reception when we got close to Doomadgee itself and it was getting late so we decided to camp by the river there. It is an Aboriginal settlement and we werent really sure if we were supposed to be camping there so we were very unobtrusive and didnt light a fire or draw attention to ourselves. While I was on the computer catching up with work my wonderful friend Joi called me on Skype to say hello and we caught up on news - it was great to hear from her!!
29 August 2010
Big day of driving!! We kept heading west and got to Hell's Gate and needed to refuel only to find out that they don't have eftpos!! AAGH!! Luckily we could get on their internet and organise a bank transfer as there was no mobile reception either. The lady there was lovely and told us what to expect on the road ahead which included a couple of rough creek crossings that needed to be walked before driving if you were unfamiliar with them. We got through all creek crossings in one piece and even found a few really nice places next to creeks that we would have loved to have camped at but there was no mobile reception at any of them so we pushed on until we hit Boroloola. Mum had told us to go to the first boat ramp for camping which we thought we did and when we got there there were a bunch of very noisy, drunk locals (dry comminity!). We weren't all that impressed so I contacted mum to make sure we had it right and found out that we must have passed the sign to the first boat ramp so we headed back out and found the right one - much better. Apparently it is normally fairly crowded but there was no-one else in sight when we arrived so we had the whole place to ourselves!!
30 August 2010
We spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading - tough life. Fish fried in butter and mashed taties for dinner - yum yum!!
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