Today, besides being my birthday, was off to Lawn Hill National Park.  We left the Karavan at Gregory River & drove in the 100km, the first 11km was bitumen, the majority of the rest was good dirt road until the Century mine turnoff at around 47km.  We only met a few road trains from the mines that we pulled over & stopped for, the only other dangers we had were the cattle wandering all over the road & we had to stop a few times for them as well.  As we got closer to Lawn Hill the dirt road steadily got rougher, then once we entered the National Park the corrugations really started to kick in & the last 20km was reasonably rough, I’m glad we weren’t towing the Karavan.

Lawn Hill Gorge is a pretty spot & we hired a canoe for a couple of hours & paddled up the gorge until the waterfall, ported the canoe about 40m around it, then continued up the gorge until we came to the source of the springs.  Apparently 5,000 litres a second come out of the ground and keep the Lawn Hill Creek flowing continually, it was certainly gushing fairly fast when we were there. We had our lunch at the top of the gorge then paddled back to the bottom of the gorge, all around  a bit over 2 hours.  Very pretty, Tereza took lots of photos whilst I paddled, a little disappointed we didn’t see any freshwater crocodiles as some of the returning canoeists had.  We then went on the “Wild Dog Dreaming” walk to the bottom gorge past some aboriginal paintings & rock carving.  Again the walk was very pleasant with the rugged backdrop of the deep iron red cliffs and hills adding to the beauty of the walk.

The time was getting on so we then started heading back & called in to Adels Grove, now a caravan & camping park, but formerly an experimental plant farm set up by the

government.  We bought an ice cream & had a walk around the gorge, pretty, but we much prefer our campsite at Gregory River.  Back home (the Karavan) with the obligatory corrugations & unpredictable cattle once more. We received some Telstra NextG mobile coverage on top of a hill (god knows where from) on the way & stopped to check & see how my dad was faring after his heart tests & discussed the stent the doctors put in during the tests, apparently he had a pretty bad blockage so they did it straight away.

This afternoon it was coffee time & whilst I was having a wash in the river next to the Karavan, Tereza whisked out a birthday cake she had kept hidden from me, put a candle in it & sang happy birthday to me when she brought it out.  What a sweetheart.  Whilst sitting having the coffee & cake we were surrounded by crimson finches looking for a place to camp for the night in the pandanus next to us.  It’s simply amazing the amount & variety of birdlife here.  I even spotlighted a very large freshwater prawn in the crystal clear waters of the river.

I am always amazed that you drive for 100’s of kilometres & all you see is Savannah country, no change & than a place like Lawn Hill.  It is amazing to see those enormous red cliffs.  I was paddled up and down the river like Queen Muck, lovely but I was not under any illusion – Ron didn’t want to get his camera wet.  We packed some wraps and fruit for lunch so that was our special birthday meal.  Dinner was even more special, left overs with a glass of wine and yogurt for desert, under starlight & full moon, next to a campfire & a bubbling river.