Camooweal Queensland

We finally made it back to the Civilized world. I never thought I would be so happy to have power again. 6 Days/nights of non powered camping proved to be a big challenge on the charging systems and fridges. That being said we survived and probably learned a bit from our experience. Hopefully we can adapt some changes for our next extended stay off the power grid.

Wednesday morning saw us up at 6AM and on the road by 7AM. We only had about 300 Km to Camooweal but much of the road is 4WD dirt so we are allowing for very slow travel. We took the road towards Lawn Hill National Park again before turning towards Riversleigh (Myumba). We travelled some 50 Km South East towards Riversleigh Fossil Area D. The road was rough with lots of sharp rocks and varying widths. No traffic to speak of as we were very early. Encountered our first Gregory River crossing just before the Fossil location which we crossed with no issues.

We stopped for a break and a quick tour or the Fossil Discovery at Riversleigh. Interesting but very hot even by mid morning. Nice display area under cover with information about the discovery. Had a quick look at 3 or 4 Fossil areas before returning to the cars.

We had another 30 Km of rough road to tackle before we hit the more significant gravel road between Gregory Downs and Mount Isa/Camooweal. This section was challenging with two more River crossings. The first one was crossing the Gregory River again and was fairly high/strong current. We both made it across but was a bit of an unnerving experience for all of us! The crossing at the O'Shaunnassy River was much easier and less stressful. Very slow going travel as we were taking it easy for safety and reduced stress on our cars/caravans. Completed the first 80 Km of our trip in about 3 hours!

The road improved marginally once we joined the gravel road between Gregory Downs and Mount Isa/Camooweal. That being said we still needed to keep our speed down as conditions varied with a lot of dips/floodways and sharp rocks. Country side was very pretty for most of the trip with beautiful reds/whites/greens on either side of the road. A couple of nice water scenes but no water crossings. Another 120 Km of gravel/dirt/and some sealed sections took us a further 3 hours. We finally rejoined the Barkly Highway for our final 70 Km into Camooweal. Was really happy to see a real highway with shoulders and lines!

Arrived in Camooweal in late afternoon and checked into the Post Office Caravan Park. Nice site with all gravel sites. Has a lovely swimming pool, mobile coverage, and best of all power! I'm sure there electricity meters started cranking like crazy when we hooked everything up and powered up the Air Conditioning, Washing Machine, and every electrical device we had that needed charging! From a speedy setup straight to the swimming pool. Very, very long day of travel and not one we look forward to repeating. We certainly have a feeling of accomplishment from our off road experiences over the last week but also a healthy respect for living/traveling in Remote Outback Australia.

The caravan park is very nice and tidy with the swimming pool being a bonus. Pricing was reasonable at $30/night. Still quite hot but much more comfortable than our last week even without the air conditioning. Nice breeze and some shade. Amenities are good and clean with a 3.5 Star rating! The park appears to be an overnight stay only for travelers heading to the Northern Territory or Northern Queensland. The park fills up quickly most afternoons although not to capacity. Only one other couple spent more than one day here during our stay. We enjoyed an easy dinner and an early night as we were all exhausted.

Thursday was spent cleaning and performing minor repairs/maintenance to the cars/caravans. Sandra and Carol had most of our clothes to wash and the insides of the caravans were a dusty mess. I spent quite a few hours blowing red dust out of the outside of the van. Had a couple of repairs to the electric brakes on the caravan as some wires were disconnected. Rechecked all the tyre pressures on both sets of cars and caravans to ensure everything was back up to highway pressures again. Enjoyed the pool for a few cool downs during the day as well. Topped up the Diesel on both cars for our next leg into the Northern Territory. Had a nice meal with the Ransleys before doing some more stargazing.  Sandra and I spent a few hours going through about 400 photos that we had taken over the last week. We weeded them down to 125 that we uploaded to our Web Album.

Got another couple of nice Sunset photos during our stay as well.

Friday saw Sandra cleaning the caravan and car while I got stuck into Blog updates. Got Leichhardt Lagoon and Adels Grove done before lunch. Gave Sandra a bit of help with the car as well. Back into the updates for Camooweal in the afternoon. Warm day again but manageable with a bit of a breeze, swimming pool, and of course Air Conditioning. Spent the afternoon doing a bit of R&R around the pool. Didn't see too much of Camooweal during our visit as have been busy cleaning. I don't think there is a lot to see regardless. That being said we have certainly enjoyed the caravan park and the modern conveniences of mobile coverage, fresh water, and power!

Tomorrow we are leaving Queensland behind as we make our first foray into the Northern Territory. Our plan is to travel West to the Barkly Homestead before turning North on the Tablelands Highway.
It may be awhile again before we have mobile coverage as we are heading up to the Gulf of Carpentaria again. Will talk again when we can.

Gregory Downs & Adels Grove, Queensland

Saturday saw us on the road again heading first West than South some 200 Km towards Burke & Wills Roadhouse. The Matilda Highway is another Development Road with sections of Single lane traffic. Luckily there wasn't much traffic and no Road Trains. Long sections of both single and two way traffic. Sandra took a turn at the wheel as well.

We stopped at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse for a break. We bought a bottle of Kirk's Ginger Beer for $5.20. Wow! Liquid Gold but needed something cold! From Burke & Wills we turned West on the Wills Development Road towards Gregory Downs. The road was in good condition with very little traffic for the 150 Km to Gregory Downs. As always in this part of Australia you need to be cautious re animals. Lots of road kill with Hawks/Wedgetails, and cattle that don't react predictably!

We booked into the Caravan park there for one night as we were getting conflicting information about the free camp area by the River. Apparently a lot of people do camp there but it is not an approved site. There is an approved site up closer to the road but we didn't discover it until later. The caravan park was empty when we arrived. $10/person was reasonable with drinking water on tap but no power. Sites were shaded and was significantly cooler than Leichhardt Lagoon. Amenities were of the en-suite variety but hadn't seen a cleaner in several days. 1 Star only which Sandra feels is being generous. Too bad as could have been much higher with a decent cleaning.

Stephen got out his generator in the afternoon to give it a test and we both topped up our batteries for an hour.  We again got conflicting stories about the road condition and the open/closed status out to Adels Grove. We talked to someone who had been on it that day (without a caravan) who thought we would be OK as long as we took our time. We all went to the Pub for a cold drink in the late afternoon where we had a general meeting and decided to venture on to Adels Grove with the caravans in the morning. The Pub was an interesting place with interesting people but wouldn't be on our list for living locations.

Sunday morning we hit the road again for the relatively short trip (90 Km) to Adels Grove. The first half of the trip was on sealed roads of varying quality but easily passable. After the Century Mine turnoff the road was indeed marked with Road Closed indicators. We lowered our tyre pressures and removed our Sway bars before heading off for the final 45 Km of unsealed road. We took our time and didn't find any sections of the road that we considered too difficult or dangerous for us and our caravans. Arrived safely in Adels Grove around Lunch time.

We checked into a couple of caravan sites on the upper level. This area was fairly open with limited shade. On the plus side was good for our Solar Panels and generator usage was allowed. Nice camping area with individual campsites. We got adjoining sites so we could share generator. Water on tap but not recommended for drinking so we didn't hook up to the caravan. A couple of amenity blocks with one more modern than the other. Both were clean however so a 3 Star rating! We checked out the lower or Grove section of the campground during our stay and wouldn't recommend for caravans as crowded and very little sunlight. On the positive side was lovely and secluded and considerably cooler.

We got setup with Awning and Shade cloths to protect the fridge and ourselves as best we could. We ventured down to the swimming hole at the back of the Reception/Restaurant area to explore and cool off. A lovely shaded and shallow area in the creek was directly behind the Restaurant Deck. Another deeper and more open area was located at the back of the Grove camping area. The deck area of the complex also featured Telstra 3G coverage so we were able to catch up with some phone calls and internet access. Had been without both for 3 days so was good to reconnect! We all enjoyed a quiet afternoon catching up and keeping cool. Was very hot again but significantly cooler at the restaurant/swimming area which was shaded.

Monday morning we headed up the road to Lawn Hill National Park (Boodjamulla) where we were booked onto a 10AM Gorge River tour. The road in was fairly rough but easily passable. Arrived just in time to join another 2 couples and our tour guide, John on an hour long tour of the Middle Gorge. Is a really beautiful area with beautiful gorge and abundant plant life. We journeyed down as far as the Indarri Falls which are fed by the Upper Gorge. Only about 2 metres of height difference but large amounts of water spilling over  in a number of locations. From there we returned to our starting position enjoying the views and colours of the Gorge from a different angle. Quite a reasonable tour at $75 for two of us.

Returned to the caravan park where we tried our best to keep cool in very hot conditions. All our fridges and freezers were struggling with the heat as well. Our's were working fine but working very hard and running down our batteries faster than the solar could replenish. The Ransleys were having the same charging issues and temperamental caravan fridge as well! We fired up the generator for a good session in the afternoon but still struggled to keep up with the battery drain. Sandra and I headed down to the restaurant/swimming hole again after lunch to keep cool and talk to the girls. Had a relaxing few hours before returning to the caravan to begin a BBQ Baked dinner. Not the most pleasant task at 40 degrees but we certainly enjoyed it when completed. Setup our table and chairs in another shaded site for dinner. The bugs here are fairly bad as well so had a variety of defenses trying to keep them at bay while we ate. Enjoyed a cold shower at the amenity block before sitting under the stars for awhile. We spotted quite a few Sputniks (satellites) and a few Shooting Stars. Still really hot at night and not a lot we can do about it with our power supply dwindling! We had a really poor nights sleep highlighted by realizing our portable Waeco freezer had gone off at 4AM. Relocated it to the car battery pack where it lasted until morning. Unfortunately, that didn't help our sleep or our neighbours who heard us rummaging around at 4 in the morning! Oops!

We had an early start booked for Tuesday morning as we planned to return to Lawn Hill and do a few walks along the Gorge. While we weren't in the best frame of minds at 6AM we carried on with our plans. We started our first walk by 7AM which was good as the temperature quickly heated up again. The morning colours of the Gorge and surrounding escarpments were beautiful. Our first walk took us back along the Middle Gorge to Indarri Falls. We made it in good time so decided to continue on to the Upper Gorge which was another 1.5 Km. Very nice walk along the base of the Gorge walls that was mostly shaded for the first half. The last half involved a bit of a climb to the top of the escarpment overlooking the Upper Gorge. Beautiful! We got a bit of a real life nature show when we looked farther up the Gorge from our view point. Saw a Freshwater Crocodile and a wild pig at a creek mouth. Also saw some large fish feeding on a dead bird. Great experience!

From there we headed back down the escarpment and returned to the Indarri Falls. We all enjoyed a welcome swim there as it had really started to heat up. Lovely swimming area where we were able to swim right up to and under the falls. Very refreshing as well.

Once again we headed back out on the walking trail. This time we completed a fairly steep climb to a lookout overlooking the Falls. Great to see it from a different perspective. Proceeded along the escarpment which had a number of viewpoints looking down into the gorge and back towards the Ranger residences and campground. Duwadarri lookout in particular offered a 360 degree view of the Gorge and surrounding area. We were all getting hot and tired by this point and our water supplies were dwindling. We continued on down a very steep climb before rejoining our original path from the Ranger Station. We were all exhausted by the time we made it back to the cars. That being said, it was a great walk and well worth the effort. Make sure you do it early and take lots of water especially when it is hot!

We had a quiet trip back to the caravan. We enjoyed a lunch at the restaurant as quite frankly no one had the energy to prepare a lunch! We all took advantage of the swimming area and restaurant area throughout the afternoon to keep cool and catch up with family and friends. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Ransley's generator wasn't functioning properly when we turned it on that afternoon to recharge. We think it may have cut out the previous evening but can't be sure. Motor runs perfectly but is not providing any power output! We all got a pretty decent Solar charge during the day so hopefully we will all last through the night as our battery levels are fading fast! Enjoyed a meal of leftovers cleaning out our fridges as much as possible before our next move. Another quiet and early night conserving energy and trying to keep cool. We are aiming for a very early start as we have a fairly long rough road to contend with getting to Camooweal which is our next stop.

We really enjoyed our visit to Lawn Hill/Adels Grove and would recommend highly. The Gorge is beautiful as is the restaurant/swimming area at Adels Grove. The downsides would be the lack of power, high costs, and the difficult roads into this location. You really have to want to see it! $18 per person/night for non powered with no drinking water is pretty steep as well! That being said, We would have probably stayed a few days longer if we had power as was a beautiful location. There is also a canoe rental at either Adels Grove or Lawn Hill which we would have done if we had stayed longer. Would be a repeat of the River Tour at Lawn Hill but you can take the canoe over a portage to the Upper Gorge to explore as well. You can use your own canoes as well if you have them which is good!

Croydon and Leichhardt Lagoon, Queensland

We're back in the world of Technology and Power after some time off the grid. I'm cheating and combining a few stays together in this Post and the next one.

Wednesday morning saw us packing up and heading West towards Croydon for a return visit. In 2012 we passed through Croydon with only a quick stop over. We arrived at Croydon Caravan Park without incident by lunch time. The Development road was fairly good with long sections of two way highway. The Caravan Park is relatively small and primarily an overnight stop for people heading to Karumba from down South. We got some drive through sites as we were only staying overnight as well. A bit of shade and luckily a nice swimming pool as was 37 degrees again. Amenities were basic but clean with a 3 Star rating.

We spent the afternoon doing a bit of shopping and touring the Croydon Heritage Precinct. Well worth a visit for travelers as they have restored the Police Station, Courthouse, Town Hall, etc for the Public to tour. There is no charge for this and the Visitor Centre is well worth a visit too! The later afternoon saw us enjoying the Pool and charging up for a our upcoming days of free camping.

Thursday morning we again ventured West on the Development road towards Normanton. We had decided to spend a few days in this area to do some shopping and relaxing at Leichhardt Lagoon. This is a low cost campground on private land about 23 Km South East of Normanton. Cost was $8 per person/night with very basic services. Toilets and Showers with untreated tap water from the Lagoon. Apparently this campground is frequented by many of the same people who spend the winter months here. We were the first people there besides the Caretakers but during the day 2 more caravans came in. The location was beautiful with lots of water lillies and bird life. The amenities were very basic but clean. Frogs and Cane toads were an issue however. I'll give a 2.5 Star rating.

We had a bit of shade but our time here was very hot (37+ degrees with nights only dropping to the low 30s) Was quite unbearable without air conditioning and little breeze. We took a drive into Normanton in the afternoon where we did some banking and shopping. We enjoyed a happy hour with the Caretakers, Graham and Phil (Phyllis), who have been coming here for 17 years. Lovely couple. We enjoyed a nice sunset overlooking the Lagoon where they even have a primitive seating/viewing area set up. Enjoyed the various birdlife as well of which Magpie Geese were the most prolific.

We sweltered through a very hot night with not a lot of sleep for anyone. Enjoyed some quiet time in the morning watching the birdlife on the Lagoon. No mobile or TV coverage in the park so there really wasn't that much more to do. We took a drive down to the Weir and Normanton River in the early afternoon before another drive into Normanton. Stopped at the Visitor Centre to check on road conditions out to Adel's Grove which is out next destination. Road information is sketchy with the road from Gregory Downs to Adel's Grove apparently closed but usable?? We did some phone calls from Normanton before returning to the Lagoon for another hot afternoon. Another beautiful sunset with a few Brolgas landing in the distance. The Ransleys are having some problems with their caravan fridge on gas so we have been shuffling our fridge/freezer contents as best we can to accommodate.

Leichhardt Lagoon is a beautiful location but we all agreed that we couldn't envision spending 4 months there especially when as hot as our stay. Definitely would need a generator operating for extended periods.