Sep 3-7 (Day 216-219) - Leichhardt River to Gregory via Burketown; then Lawn Hill and back to Burketown

Thursday September 3

Our intention for the next few days was to get down to Lawn Hill, about which we'd heard many great reports. Camping at Lawn Hill National Park is run by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services, but when we checked their website we found they were booked up for the next few weeks. So instead of this, we decided to stay at a free camp in the well-named town of Gregory, then leave the van there and drive into Lawn Hill for a day to see how we liked it and if necessary to then book for a month or so ahead when there was availability.

The boys did a bit of fishing in the morning which took longer than we'd expected, though they didn't catch anything, so we didn't end up leaving until closer to lunchtime. The track out was quite sandy and uphill a bit, so we had to get a bit of a run-up to get enough speed to make it out, but we made it.

On the way out we saw a couple of rusted wrecked cars. Given where we've been so far, seeing wrecked rusted cars is hardly a novelty, but the shape of this one made me stop for a closer look. On closer inspection found that one of them was an EK Holden, which was built in the early 1960's!

60 years ago, it could have been this car...

Given the car is half buried in mud, it seems most likely that this is a vehicle which was washed down river during some floods in the wet season and got deposited here. I know Brisbane flooded in 1974, and when we were in Normanton there was some information about Krys the croc, and that the original photos were lost in the 1974 floods. Given this car would have been about 12 years old at that time, it seems likely it might have been lost then.

We drove on towards Burketown, which sits basically at the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and this whole drive took us through the heart of "Gulf Country".

WHAT IS "GULF COUNTRY" LIKE?

This part of Australia around the Gulf of Carpentaria is known as 'Gulf Country', and the main industry up here is cattle farming. Driving through, it's clear why this is.

In a nutshell, it's relatively flat, it's open, and it's criss-crossed by hundreds of streams and rivers which run from inland areas and drain out into the Gulf.  In this sense it is perhaps similar to the Nile Delta, or the Murray River flood-plains, although like the Murray region the rivers carve channels in between more elevated portions of land.

Some of the many rivers draining into the Gulf of Carpentaria,
seen here around Burketown.

During the wet season, heavy rains inundate the whole north of Australia, and some of the water from these rains drain out through the low-lying Gulf Country into the Gulf itself. The rains in the wet season helps feed the grass, which then grows nicely and by this time of year has dried out to provide thousands of acres of dry cattle feed.

Just before the entrance to Burketown you come across the Burketown Thermal Spring! This bore spews out a regular supply of 68 degrees C water. Typically of artesian water, it's full of minerals, and over the years this deposit of minerals has built this hill of mineral deposits around the original well.

Burketown thermal bore

The water flows from this bore at 68 degrees C!

We had to collect a couple of parcels from the Burketown Post Office which had been waiting for us - some mobile phone screen protectors, and some samples of some new BBQ gloves we're going to be selling soon. These collected, we stopped at the local park for lunch. While we were here it was interesting to see many large locusts grazing on the grass, and the whistling kits soaring overhead from time to time dived down to collect these (presumably) tasty treats for lunch!

Thousands of locusts roam freely around these parts

From Burketown, we drove about an hour south down to the splendidly-named town of Gregory! Gregory sits at the junction of the road that runs between Burketown and Mt Isa (which we'd driven down) and a road west out to Lawn Hill National Park which we intend to visit tomorrow. We pulled up in a free camp close to this corner. We'd hoped there'd be some water in the river, but sadly not that we could see.

Friday September 4 - Lawn Hill

As we drove out from our camp spot, we went over the Gregory Bridge, and you can imagine our surprise when we looked down and saw  .... LOTS OF WATER and lots of caravans! Clearly the river WAS flowing, and if we'd driven 100m further yesterday we would have found the ACTUAL river bed, not a side channel that presumably only runs in the wet season! We agreed to check this out on our way back!

The hour or so's drive west from Gregory out to Lawn Hill was pretty rough to be honest. Not as rough as Bamaga Road heading up to the tip of Cape York, but not a comfortable drive by any means.

Once we got down to the water, it was a pretty amazing sight!

Lawn Hill National Park

As you can see, Lawn Hill looks absolutely gorgeous! However, this is where photos can be deceiving, and let me just say that no matter how pristine, tranquil or utopian something might seem to be, be it a beautiful sunset, the idea of travelling full-time or whatever it might be, things in this life are rarely absolutely the bed of roses they might first appear to be. There's often a downside you don't pick up from the photos. The lesson I think, comes from the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4v11: "... I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."


So back to Lawn Hill - lovely as it looked, the water was actually a bit on the warm side, it wasn't cool and refreshing like you might think it is from the photos, and it was very difficult to float, so it wasn't actually all that peaceful. The water was also very heavy in lime (according to some information posters), so if you drink it it makes you very thirsty. We found after our swim that our skin was quite dry. Apparently it's a lovely place for bushwalking and canoeing, but since we mainly went there for a swim we ended up coming away a bit disappointed. We saw the camping spots there and they were just different pull-in bays around a fairly dry, dusty loop track - close to the water in terms of proximity, but you couldn't see the water from most of the camp spots. So we left Lawn Hill after about an hour or so, pleased that we hadn't dragged the van along that long bumpy road and paid to stay a few nights there.

The road back from Lawn Hill

Given we hadn't had the best of swims at Lawn Hill, we were keen to stop at the Gregory River for a bit, so pulled in and stopped for a bit.

Well, I have to say without any hint of being biased, that this was one of the best rivers we've stayed by! It's freshwater, and it's flowing quickly with a rocky river bed so the water is quite clear, unlike the milky water at Lawn Hill.

 After a decent swim we headed back to the van for the night.

Saturday September 5

We packed up the van with the intention of heading back up to Burketown to return the library books, and then moving onto Northern Territory. On the way out of Gregory we refilled the van water tanks. By the time we'd done the packup and refill we were feeling pretty hot so decided to pop back down to the river for a quick dip before getting on our way.

Well. That was the idea anyway. The water was lovely and cool. The kids took us up a track a bit to the 'lagoon' where the fast part of the river started, where there was now a free camp site! We got on our body boards and started the ride down the river, and as I did so it struck me how silly it was to move on and leave this lovely spot! So I bailed out half way down, tried to pass the message on to Mim as she went sailing past on a board of her own, grabbed the car and backed the van along this narrow track before someone else grabbed the spot!

And that's how we came to be camped for the next two nights by the Gregory River, instead of driving into Northern Territory!

Our new camp spot! The river is just down to the left.

We spent pretty well all day in and out of the water. I had a go at canoeing down the river, with a few capsizes, the kids did some fishing and Matt caught a sleepy Cod! Mim showed the boys how to scale and fillet it, and we had it with our dinner!

It is amazing to see how much life there is around water, which really shows why water in the Bible is such a good symbol for the Bible itself - it gives life and sustenance in an otherwise dry and barren world.

Matt and his sleepy Cod!

Preparing Coddy for dinner!

Mim found this little bird which was a bit thirsty and was happy to have a
drink from a syringe, before flying off to a nearby tree.

This friendly damsel fly took up habitation in Mim's hair for a few minutes!

These little finches are plentiful around our camp!

Nice spot for a rest!

The 'General Store' at Gregory!

As we'd intended to be in Burketown by now we were getting a bit low on food, but fortunately there was a very cute little general store in Gregory which was able to tide us over. It was basically a window in a small hut where you ordered coffees, but behind the counter were shelves full of all sorts of supplies - much like an old corner store or lolly shop from years gone by!

Sunday 6 September

We decided to stay here for today as well so we could tune into Brighton's memorial meeting. The kids cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast (thanks kiddlies!) which we enjoyed by the river. Then we had the meeting, and enjoyed a quiet afternoon by the river.

The weather has still been quite warm so we've been in and out of the river throughout the day. We even went for a night swim!

Monday 7 September

Today we actually DID leave Gregory! What had started as a quick swim had turned into an extra two nights by a simply delightful river, but our food supplies were getting low so we had to move on.

We drove the 120km or so back to Burketown where we stocked up with some essentials in Burketown, including some lovely locally caught Barramundi and prawns, the former of which we had for dinner.  ‘Barra’ is so delicious – if you’ve never had it it’s a white-flesh fish, but very thick and meaty and plenty of flavour.  This shop was just a top-up, as we intend to do a bigger shop at Doomadgie, which is closer to the NT border.

We stayed tonight at Burketown Caravan Park. It's a fairly basic park but has a laundry which was much-needed after a week or so in free camps.

Unfortunately our portable vacuum cleaner died tonight!  We got this great little Black and Decker unit in Hervey Bay back in May after the original Vax unit we bought simply filled up too quickly and ran flat. The Black and Decker's been working very well but when we went to start it it just made a high-pitched tone and started to emit a burning electrical smell! ☹ It’s been such a good tool to have to keep the floor clean and tidy, and the nearest hardware store on our route is a Mitre 10 in Katherine, or a Bunnings (where we bought this from originally) in Darwin.  Bit of an inconvenient time for it to fail!

-- Greg