Sunday 27 June

Lawn Hills Gorge

Breakfast at Adel's Grove

Up early at Adel's Grove camp ground and up to the office to work out transport to the national park, Lawn Hill, for walking and our canoe paddle to the gorge.

We camped in 'The Grove'

The problem was that our tent was pitched atop the car so we didn't want to have to break camp and drive! Finally, it was arranged that we would go and get our stuff organised and someone would drive us up to Lawn Hill Gorge. Canoe was booked for 12 and we wanted to do some walking ahead of the paddle.

Bushland at Lawn Hill

We quickly grabbed our cameras and swimmers and made some sandwiches and headed up to the front office where we waited for a lift. A young local took us in a 4wd which was rather 'agricultural' but did the job. He was very friendly and chatty and dropped us off in the car park and said he’d be back at 2pm to get us.

Look Out at Lawn Hill

He recommended the dingo dreaming track and the lookout track for walking. Unfortunately the bridge was out so we could not do the dingo track but just did the lookout ring track and made it back to the canoe launch area well before 12. 

Walking tracks

View across the Gorge (that red rift) from up high

Looking down the spectacular Lawn Hills gorge

Adam was looking after canoes today and set us up in a double canoe. We left our shoes behind and felt brave enough to take the cameras and lunch etc. in the canoe. A water proof bag would have been a good idea!  One other couple took off at the same time and we paddled past them easily to get an uninterrupted view of the gorge as we paddled. Gorgeous. Fabulous scenery all the way. Amazing cliffs and white gums and palms.

Paddling the lower gorge

At the waterfall at the far end of the lower gorge we had to take the boat out of the water and port it upstream a bit, maybe 60m and re launch to paddle into the upper gorge. Equally beautiful, had to negotiate a narrow bit and then it opened up again into a beautiful waterway which we paddled in up to the final waterfall. We could see a few people high up in the look out but no one else.

We moored the canoe up against the bank to eat our sandwiches, but had to eat in-boat as there were no beaches anywhere. We were immediately surrounded by archer fish that were very keen on our lunch and happy to jump out of the water and take bread from our hand and to try and spit it out as well. One spat right into Roy’s camera lens!

Archer fish trying to get our lunch

I thought we were going to run into some sticks poking out of the water but then they quickly disappeared under the water- they were turtles!

We had to drag the canoe back out of the water to carry (drag) it back to the lower gorge-at least down hill this time as it was heavy! Happily another couple came along and the fellow pitched in and carried my end of the canoe! Lots of helping hands and once we negotiated a small traffic jam at the launch area we were back in the water and on our way. A very popular swimming spot and very full of people so we decided to skip the swim and keep going.

Gorge on the return paddle

White gums growing on the gorge walls

On the return paddle on the lower gorge I spotted something glinting in the sun and moving. We paddled over quietly and managed to spot a large freshwater crocodile! Bonus. It wasn't at all keen to see us and disappeared quickly.

We returned the canoe to Adam. We managed not to tip in or wet the cameras and really enjoyed the experience. Timing was good and we didn’t have to wait long for our obliging pick up.

Picked up our paddle deposit and bought a postcard for Mum.

Back to base camp for a cuppa before heading in to the water for a swim. We were assured that there were no crocs but it was cool water! Roy pulled me in, but despite that we had a lovely swim and headed for the showers.

Swim time - no crocs (promise)

State of origin game tonight will be broadcast in the bar area so we will eat up there tonight-maybe the only blues supporters around! We didn't have to worry, the blues gave the Queenslanders such a thrashing that there were no Qld supporters left after half time!

What we saw today:

• Possible brown honey Eater
• Lots of Willie wag tails
• Possible blue faced honey eater
• Possible white plumed honey eater
• Rufous Whistler
• Sunset nature walk
• Bower birds and bower
• Myriad flocks of birds but too fast to identify. Should have brought the binoculars!
• Still haven’t identified the bird in the postcard that we saw in the park. (Northern Rosella)