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Published: August 2nd 2009
Donkey
The hot water boiler at Kingfisher Camp, they built a fire under it every morning so the guests could have hot waterDAY 268
We awoke fortunately where we had gone to sleep last night which was at Kingfisher Camp, we had gone to bed at around 9.00 I was tired from the off road driving all day, but Caroline wanted to do some “Brain Training”, I’m sure its like trying to teach a walnut how to play the Saxophone. The night was cool so it was on with the extra blanket, but again the moon and stars where just spectacular.
Still without any gas, we surfaced, and as soon as we emerged from the trailer our neighbours were putting their Billy on and asked us if we wanted some hot water for our morning tea. We thank them profusely.
See what goes around comes around, we used to boil our kettle for Jo and Laurie, the people we met in Darwin, so as were kind to them someone is being kind to us, which is nice, but lets not forget that we have had people boil a kettle for us in the past as well.
We had not made up our mind if we were going to move on today, it is a great site, all
grassy with the odd Kangaroo hopping around, and the bird life is great, we had a Blue Winged Kookaburra watching us from its tree, they have such a nonchalant look on the faces, as if they just couldn’t give a stuff, but we just love them.
After some breakfast cereal, (as we had no gas) we set about doing some chores, the sun was getting high, and it was warm, so I wanted to give the trailer a bit of a spruce up outside, and get all the all the Bird and the Bat s+*t off the roof of the trailer tent, not really a pleasant job, but has to be done.
No disrespect to vegetarians, but the birds and the bats who just eat berries and nuts and that, their poo has the consistency of concrete, and is unbelievably hard to shift.
Using only cold water, we could not use detergent as it may take the waterproof out of the canvas, and a soft brush we gave the trailer tent a good clean, we changed the water 3 times and the colour of it was just filthy, fortunately it did not take long to dry in
The track to Lawn Hill
135 K's off Road to Lawn Hill the heat of the day.
Chatting to our neighbours, they also did not know whether to stay or move on, but they had decided to go for a bit of a stroll, but in conversation had recommended Adels camp ground which was in the lawn Hill National Park, which Jo and Laurie had recommended to us when we were with them in Darwin.
Caroline and myself had by then decided that we were off to Lawn Hill NP so it was time to pack a Poo Free trailer away and hustle.
We were all packed away at the same time as Caralyn and Scott our neighbours, the journey ahead of us was around 135k’s all off road and they have been told that the journey would take about 4 hours as the road is so rough.
Scott and Caralyn were towing a Tinny and we had the camper trailer, we were in no hurry, and as we have done probably 500k’s off road in the last few days another 135 was not going to make a difference.
We set off, and in the first hour had done 14 Kilometres only, the road was tough, we went
Following our neighbours
Scott and Caralyn 4x4 towing their boat through some cattle gates, us holding them open for Scott and Caralyn whilst they went through and Visa Versa.
One of the biggest hazards where the ½ kilometre sections of bull dust, that are just big sand pits, you have to just catch the ruts just right or they virtually just stop you in your tracks, we had done about 20k’s and decided that our tyre pressure was to high, for bitumen we run our Cooper Tyres at 45 Psi but needed to drop them down to 28 for added traction, and as soon as we did this the journey was definitely less teeth rattling.
We had parted from Scott and Caralyn as we had stopped to take some photographs of the large Jabiru Birds at the Billabong and just to fart about in general, but the journey went well except for the dust, it was every where, when one of the only 2 vehicles we saw on the journey came the other way we had to stop for 5 minutes before we could get moving again as we just couldn’t see our way through.
We had driven through Bowthorne Station then on to the land owned
by Lawn Hill Station, the whole journey would not take us on any normal local authority roads. We are effectively off the Savannah Way at the moment, but at some point we pick up signs to redirect you back to the Savannah Way.
Though in Northern Queensland this was real barren country, outback Australia at its finest, but our thoughts are never that far away on how easily you could get in to difficulty.
We came upon our first river crossing that was a good taster for what was to come, I don’t think for this one we even put it in to four wheeled drive, but when we got up to the second one Caroline said you have got to drive to the left hand side away from that muddy patch, then drive in to the centre of the river.
“How do you know this?” I asked her, “I was talking to a lady in the loo last night and she asked me where I was heading, I told her we were heading to Lawn Hill and she told me about the river crossing.”
We pulled the truck to the side and parked it, I
wanted to have a look in this river before we got in there and found it far too deep, so Caroline and myself stood on the edge and peered in to the murky water, briefly hoping a croc may swim by, but that is just fanciful. There are no crocodile warning signs here, but we are wary, just because we have come over the border we are still the same distance from the coast and we would not know if anyone checks the water here for crocs when the wet season is over.
We knew a vehicle we had seen earlier had had to come this way, so logically we knew it could be achieved, we jumped in the Patrol took her high and wide to the left then gently dropped her in to the river water without making too much of a splash.
The Patrol in 4 wheeled drive crept in slowly, slowly easing it forwards getting deeper and deeper, until we were in the middle, I dropped the window and looked down at the depth of the water and it was definitely the deepest crossing we had done on this trip.
Still we had no
Looking for Trouble
Some cows wanted hassle choice we were now committed to crossing and had to keep moving forwards, as lounging through fear in the middle of a river crossing was not an option. We reached the Island in the middle, we could only guess at the track out of the water and slowly dropped back in, this time not quite so deep.
Soon we were climbing the steep bank out, the water, we pulled it on to the dry and got out expecting to see water draining out of the door seals, but fortunately we had nothing, the water level had come above the bottom of the trailer and 830mm up the Patrol, still we were still dry, the truck was in one piece and we were having a whale of a time.
Onwards we pushed and eventually we pulled up at Adels Grove part of Lawn Hill National Park.
Civilisation, at last, it seemed a hive of activity, there were a few members of staff around and a few vehicles, there are only a few off road caravans here.
We paid for two nights, as it seemed a great place, the staff said that they refilled LPG gas bottles which
Dropping the tyre Pressure
from 45 PSI to 28 PSI due to the sharp rocks we were happy about though we had been prepared to cook and boil the Billy on an open fire which are allowed.
On paying your money you are given a little photo copied booklet called Adels Grove, “Campers Guide” it covers things like: your site, Water (should be boiled before drinking), your Fireplace, Generators, Garbage, shop, restaurant and Bar.
The bit I wanted to share with you is an extract on Animals, it says,
Crows, Kites Wallabies, Dingos and Feral Pigs may scavenge around your campsite during the night or whilst you are away at the gorge. They have learned that plastic bags, margarine containers and other packages often contain edible goodies so please do not leave these where they can be easily accessed by these animals. If you leave a loaf of bread unattended on your outside table then expect to loose it.
In the reptile line we are blessed with the only species of Crocodile, a couple of turtle species and a variety of Lizards. During daylight hours you may se a number of different species of Whip Snake, which are poisonous, maybe a western Brown or an Ingram’s Brown, again highly venomous and
a common tree snake that is quite harmless. This tree snake is very slender, a beautiful yellow-brown with a bluish head and may sometimes be seen around the amenities block looking for a green tree frog for lunch.
After dark you may seethe Olive Python, Olive Brown in Colour up to 4 Mtrs long, this bloke feeds on warm blooded animals such as birds and Wallabies and although no case of Human predations are known to us Babies and very small children could well fall within the size range of prey for this reptile.
We do not seek to alarm you unduly with this information but merely to make you conscious of the possibilities
We set to and set up out temporary home, and in no time our gas bottle was back and our whistling friend was telling us our water had boiled.
Scott and Caralyn had set up their Oz tent just a little way from ours, and as soon as we were all done for a treat we went up to the bar for a well deserved beer.
By the time we got back it was past 7.00 pm, and we hadn’t had
Gate Girl
We went through loads of gates any lunch and were very hungry, the curry we had ear marked for tonight was still frozen so we decided to knock something up that was quick and easy.
Soon we were sitting around the fire talking to Scott and Caralyn who are from Perth and have had a long spell working in Darwin, Caralyn is a Nurse and Scott is a Civil Engineer, designer.
The evening was getting cooler, not as cool as Kingfisher Camp though and the fire made our legs nice and toasty, we retired to bed tired after such a busy day, and snuggled under the blankets and the sleeping bags, waiting for natures anaesthetic to take hold.
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Helen Sheridan
non-member comment
Meteor showers
Hi Caroline and Andy, I was listening to the radio early this morning when the space man was on and he said that there are some fairly decent meteor showers coming from 11th to the 14th I think it was between 1 and 4 in the morning. You look to the east and it is about a handspan to the left of the saucepan. Thought you might be interested in having a look. Love Helen