Lawn Hill and Kingfisher camp

We deviated from our main route today- we had been told that Lawn Hill Gorge was the most beautiful in the whole of Australia. They lied.

But the route down was great- we passed over savannah and through woodland, once again being rewarded with the sight of many kangaroos and wallabies, and of course large numbers of birds of prey.

One wedge tailed eagle sat in the road with his roadkill as we approached until we stopped just a few yards away, where we photographed him completely unconcerned, then lazily took off to join his mate in the sky above us.

There are huge amounts of cattle, mainly Brahman and Charolais cross, which appear to thrive here. Many times we have to slow right down for huge bulls stood at the side of the road, until we know his intentions. Usually he saunters across, and we don’t want an argument with him!.

It was a 200km diversion to Lawn Hill, mainly dirt roads, we arrived there around 11am, and decided to walk a couple of their paths before lunch. Despite the distance the car park was full, many people walking about, so we took off down a path to the cascades. As we crossed a bridge the views both ways were lovely, but the cascades themselves were a disappointment, as no water was running. Shame!

Another path took us to the lower gorge and some interesting Aboriginal rock art, some of it 10,000 year old. They don’t like us to photograph it, so we obliged by keeping the camera away.

Leaving Lawn hill we took another road towards our night stop, Kingfisher camp, a distance of 147 km, normally only around an hour and a half for us even on dirt roads. It took us over three hours, the road was pretty bad. There were ruts and bulldust holes  galore, deep sand and mud in places. Instead of cattle grids we had gates, about ten of them, and creeks and rivers galore.

 One of them was about 200 metres wide, and we couldn’t see where we went out of it as it was round a bend, with no idea how deep it was we plunged in. No choice. But we were ok as it happened, water came up to Betty’s bumper but no further.

Unfortunately I have to report that I accidentally ran over a snake in the road today. I immediately exited our vehicle and ran round to see if I could save it, giving it the kiss of life. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whichever way you look at it) it had expired. I gave it a decent burial in the anthill at the side of the road.

As we approached another creek we found two bikes by the side of the road, nobody about, so we stopped to make sure that whoever owned them was OK. Bear in mind that we had seen no other vehicle on this road, it was completely deserted. Eventually a lad in his twenties waded across the creek with a four litre bottle of dirty water in his hand, obviously from the creek. I asked if he needed water, and he said he has hoped to get some clean from the creek, but it was dirty, he would try to purify it with tablets for his cooking tonight.

 I told him we had plenty of water with us and he could have some, which he gratefully accepted.

It seems he and his girlfriend, both German, who joined us just then, had cycled from Darwin and we think are doing a full tour as we are. They will sleep where they happen to be at sunset, in the bush. Best of luck!.

Arriving at Kingfisher camp, we set up and took a walk to the waterhole. It is really very beautiful, we wish we could stay here a while, we can hire boats here as well as canoe down the river, and I understand there is a 4wd track that we can use on the station, to a swimming hole of great beauty. Maybe we can come back sometime,  but tomorrow we must move on again to meet our deadline in Darwin five days from now.