Day 7 Saturday 28th June

Riversleigh to Lawn Hill (Boodjamulla) (60km)

Sure enough, just before dawn, the empty cattle truck came through. Then, about an hour later, it came past again....this time with the beasts on board.

We felt that we had a very leisurely start to our day, even a cooked breakfast. Still, we were on the road at 8.45am. (Pack up is much quicker when you can feel your fingers!!)

We arrived at Lawn Hill NP just before 10am. Our site was vacant so we were able to set up straight away. Since we are here for 3 nights we have the 'luxury' of the awning, the outside floor mat, and the pantry! After coffee, a bit of 'pottering about' and then lunch, we rented a canoe and headed up the gorge. Since the canoe guy 'knocks off' at 2pm, we can have the canoe all afternoon and he only charges for 2 hours. We have to give him an extra $50 which he refunds when we take the paddles back in the morning. The canoes are just left on the bank, but he locks up the paddles in a little trailer, and we have heard stories of people using canoes with shovels as paddles, or even palm fronds! We didn't witness anyone doing this!!! We had a lovely few hours, (although my back is aching...the canoes are very basic and do not have back rests), and saw two freshwater crocs. One was just a baby, (he's the one in the photo), and the other was quite large...the biggest freshie we have seen. We had two swims, one before our portage to the upper gorge, and one on the way back. The water level seemed higher than last time, evidence of this being that we could get a little bit further up the gorge.

Once back at camp we had a shower...and then happy hour! (There are some other campers near us who are also from Newcastle...we had a bit of a chat to them.)

It is getting dark later now and so we didn't eat till almost 7pm!!! It is not cold, but there are mozzies.

And as an added bonus, since visiting here 3 years ago, the park now has full coverage with Telstra, so we are able to use our mobile WiFi! Excellent! (No FOMO!)