Savannah Highway - Karumba to Cairns 11-14th July 2012

We left bright and early from Karumba to get to Cobbold Gorge. The journey was pretty much uneventful. We stopped off briefly at Croydon to refuel and have lunch.

CROYDON boasts the oldest shop in Australia, and the décor inside is like the old days. Not much has changed.  Because of time pressure, we weren’t able to spend time in the town but it is definitely worth a good few hours or a night stop over.  They have restored many of their old buildings and done a great job at attracting tourists to their Outback town.

We had almost arrived at Cobbold Gorge when we saw this snake on the road. We think it was a Wip snake. Unfortunately, it would appear that it raised its head as we or the car in front passed over it and a loose stone hit it in the throat. Sadly, it was bleeding and dying. We’re not lovers of snakes (far be it) but it really was a very attractive snake. 

As we arrived at COBBOLD GORGE, we were blown away by the whole set up.  They have a magnificent reception/shop, open air restaurant, chalets and a very modern 3-week old swimming pool where the water cascades over the edge and gives the appearance of being part of the lake which it overlooks.  The caravan park was smallish but very well set out with excellent facilities.  Once again, we left our caravan at Georgetown as rain had fallen in the area the day before and we had heard that the road in was very slippery. Not a good idea to take a caravan in.

The resort is situated on the massive cattle station, How Long, 70km south of Georgetown and was another 'must see' place for us.  Their main attraction is the gorge itself.  One can also do tours of the cattle station and go fishing for barramundi, hiking, fossicking for gems and bird watching.  
The trip through the gorge was amazing.  Using custom-made electric powered boats, we glided silently through the gorge with its majestic 30-metre walls spectacularly sculpted.  The water is crystal clear.  The only downfall was trying to take photos over other peoples heads. It would be absolute magic to go through alone. The gorge is about 6km long but only about 1km is accessible due to a rock fall. It is very narrow in parts and we could only just pass through with some clever manoeuvring by the tour guide and some of the guests assisting by pushing against the rocks.  The beauty of the gorge lay not only in the shapes of the rocks but in the colours as well.  The photos just don't do justice to what we experienced.

Because of the silence,  the fresh water crocodiles sunning themselves on the rocks are not disturbed neither is the bird life. We saw turtles and very young little baby crocs as well.  

Preceding the boat trip, we were taken on a 2 hour bush walk which was most interesting.  Our guide showed us the various medicinal and nutritional uses of plants and those that were harmful (poisonous). We also learnt about the rock formations on the cattle station.

We had wonderful weather and the air was so still that the reflections on the lake were perfect.

We were advised to watch the sunset from Quartz Blow,  a small hill made up of large quartz rocks.  We managed to climb up and over these rocks with glasses and snacks in hand then perched ourselves on an uncomfortable rock each.  We were all alone, and the 360-degree view was wonderful.  Except for the birds which were coming in to roost for the night, there was absolute silence. Another wonderful experience.

The following day we tried our hand at fossicking for agate at Agate Creek gem fields.  Having bought a fossicking license 2 days previously, we left with great anticipation of finding some agates.  After all, the web says, “Agate Creek is a world class collecting site that offers agate of exceptional colour, clarity and pattern. Located in Queensland, Australia, Agate Creek is remarkable for the quality and diversity of agate to be found. No other location offers such variety “. We surely would be successful so shovel and a hammer in hand and with plastic bags, off we set.  On arriving there, we found the ground scattered with stones.  Great….but we had NO idea how to identify an agate from any other stone or rock. What were we looking for???  Our enthusiasm kept us going and we picked up all sorts of stones including some clearly worthless agate chips which looked pretty.  We met a fossicker, got chatting and he gave us some tips then took a look at our collection. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! He threw almost everything out!!! Undeterred we started again as now we knew what we were looking for….or did we? Only time will tell when we finally get to finding someone who will look at them.  Just maybe in that bag there is one piece which can be used. Here’s hoping but we had a great day. Another new experience!

Two keen fossickers laid to rest here.

All too soon on the Saturday we had to leave Cobbold Gorge. The journey started well.  We reached Georgetown, filled up with fuel, collected our caravan and set off for Cairns as Bert had 2-days work coming up leaving Monday.  80 km later while waiting at the lights at a roadworks site, the car died on us. What now?  We were out of phone reception and didn't know how far we were from the nearest town?  

Four hours later we were back on the road after an interesting experience! Not permitted to enter a work site,  one of the road works staff collected Kenau and took her to the top of the hill where she was able to get 1 bar mobile reception and phoned RACQ. Back at the caravan, there was no time for boredom. While waiting at the red lights, the Grey Nomads, stopping at the roadworks stop lights, with their caravans, would ask if they could help. We always had lots of people to chat to. 

Then we saw a person walking down the hill carrying a back pack and pushing a 2-wheeled basket loaded to capacity. Needless to say, we invited her in for a drink and then enjoyed lunch together.  Sarah, a writer and explorer is such an interesting and inspirational person. We so enjoyed our time with her as we heard about some of her adventures. She started her journey in Siberia, walked through the Gobi Desert and down to Thailand where she boarded a cargo vessel.  Arriving in Brisbane, she caught a flight to Cairns and was on her way to Broome another 3000km away!!!!!  Some years ago she had walked 14 000km around Australia.  Check out her website - it makes a really interesting read!

www.sarahmarquis.ch

By this time the RACQ had arrived, discovered Bert (now very embarrassed) had inadvertantly put petrol into his diesel tank. Fortunately and amazingly no damage had occurred to the engine. After draining the fuel tank and refilling it with diesel this time, the mechanic, appropriately named 'Bushy' had us on our way again!  We stopped over at Mt Surprise, the next town, for the night and pressed on event free to Cairns the following day.

Less than 24 hours later Bert was on his way to work.... in Melbourne!

THE MAP OF THE JOURNEY TO CAIRNS
A: Karumba
B: Normanton
C: Croydon
D: Georgetown (Camped 5km before here)
E: Forsayth (Nearest town near Cobbold Gorge - a further 40kms south)
F: Mt. Surprise
G: Cairns


View Larger Map

The Lawn Hill Oasis 2-7 July 2012

About a year ago we read an article in a caravan magazine about Lawn Hill National Park in NW Queensland. According to the writer, who had travelled all around Australia, said that this was the best place he had ever visited, and so the desire to see it for ourselves was born, and is the primary reason why we made this 3310km trek north!  It met all our expectations.

The Boodjamulla (previously Lawn Hill) National Park features spectacular gorges, sandstone ranges and World Heritage fossils.  Facilities and civilization are far and few between out there.  If at Lawn Hill, you are desperate for provisions, you could drive due north on a dirt road to the small town of Burketown 145km away or you could drive south on a dirt road to Camooweal 353km away. East would be 420km to Cloncurry or you may think ‘Maybe west?”  Start walking!  That's more than 400km on a track. So the Scouting motto is a good one to follow, “Be prepared!"

The beautiful Lawn Hill Gorge is formed by the Lawn Hill Creek, which runs like a ribbon through the arid countryside.  It is fed by numerous freshwater springs from the limestone plateau to the west. I believe around four million liters of water bubbles up every hour in the Georgina Basin which underlies the Barkly Tableland. 

The magnitude of the sandstone cliffs lining the gorge, its emerald waters, the bird life and lush vegetation makes it a brilliant place to visit.

THINGS WE DID AND SAW

We left our caravan at Gregory and camped at the National Park Camp site which is very well laid out with shrubs separating the sites. They have flushing toilets (yay!) and cold water showers. We met some wonderful people here, many of whom are serious 'bush' campers and had wonderful stories and experiences to share.

We went canoeing through the Lower Gorge and its sandstone cliffs to the Indarri Falls...

..... to the Indarri Falls...

And then dragged the canoe 45m along a designated path to .......

.......the Upper Gorge, where we could paddle further.

We enjoyed cooling off by tubing and swimming in the emerald waters of the gorge, not knowing whether the resident fresh water crocodiles were eyeing us out or not.  They are generally harmless, as long as you leave them alone. We saw a few sunning themselves on the banks.

We also did a fair amount of hiking. This is part of the 360 degree view while walking the circuit at the top of one of the nearby hills.

Due to the lack of electricity at Lawn Hill Camp site, we went on a few drives to recharge mobile phones, computers etc. and made a few river crossings in the process.

In spite of it not being the ‘wet’ season, the rivers still flowed quite strongly. This was a lovely spot to stop off and have a picnic lunch.

On our way back to camp we came across 6 drovers, one helicopter, one farmer in his ute and 2 little dogs moving a huge herd of Brahman cattle alongside the road to somewhere.... Who knows how far they had to walk to reach their destination as there was nothing as far as the eye could see. 

The cattle were as curious of us as we were of them.

While travelling, we noticed that the countryside was littered with small termite mounds on the flat areas and much larger ones on the hills.

This mound with Bert in the picture has a strange resemblance to a gorilla (side on).

We visited The World Heritage Listed Riversleigh  Fossil Site in the National Park which is open to the public.  Previously this area had spring-fed lakes and rainforests, and the remains of strange animals, reptiles and plants previously unknown have been found here.  www.riversleigh.com

After a great week at Lawn Hill, it was back on the road again with the Road Trains.