We left Camooweal Billabong on Tuesday 12th July and headed into town for a few supplies and to find out the conditions of the road into Gregory. The local cop suggested doing the 120km of bitumen and then do the 130km of dirt road. The dirt road wasn't that bad, as graders had recently been over the road.
We arrived at Gregory and camped down by the Gregory River for the next five nights. The weather certainly has changed, we had rain on the second night and a lot of the roads were then closed. We had to go in search of our winter woolies........ and Wednesday after a quick walk into town, we lit the fire and sat around it for the rest of the day. Our neighbours that night were Jim & Janet from Rosebud, they spent the night around the campfire having a yarn or two. We also enjoyed the company of other Victorians, a young couple from Geelong, Chris and Donna with their three kids and another couple from Dromana. We couldn't get out to Lawn Hill until Saturday, the road conditions were atrocious, well for DABUS..... it was a bus breaking road.....
At Lawn Hill we decided the form of exercise we would perform was in the way of hiking......as we hadn't been doing a great deal whilst at Gregory River.....we hiked up to the Duwadarri and Indarri lookouts which overlooks the Gorge and waterfalls......A great hike.....
On arrival back at Gregory River, we had to spend some time doing running repairs on the damage of DABUS......one of the back doors was locked shut due to all the dust.....the wardrobe door had to be put back on, as it was removed during the trip in as it was rattling to much.....and one broken cup had to be thrown out.....
One the road again on Sunday and have decided to stay on the bitumen....arriving at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse for lunch and then onto Normanton.....arriving there only to find the free camp close to town was closed down......we sought out another spot to camp for the night 6km south of Normanton beside a horse paddock..
Monday was spent seeing the sights of the town and doing some shopping.......yes Pepsi was needed....Down at the boat ramp it was suggested not to go out onto the pontoon, as a 6 metre croc had only recently taken a dog from the pontoon.......We tried to get on the overnight train trip from Normanton to Croydon on the Gulflander for Wednesday but it was totally booked out...We did get a train ride on Tuesday to Gritters Camp which was a 2 hour train ride.
Tuesday afternoon we did a trip up to Karumba then half way back to Normanton and stayed at Walkers Creek Crossing.
Early morning start on Wednesday morning as we were invited to breakfast with the locals for the celebration of the Gulflanders 125th anniversary. We got a free breakfast on the lawns of the railway station. Speeches were then conducted and a plaque unveiled to commemorate this special occasion.