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.