Saying farewell to Burketown we headed down to Gregory Downs, we have been given different opinions about staying there overnight by the river and will make a call when we get there, it is all black top and a good road.

We arrived in Gregory Downs, it is basically a Pub on the main drag, we refuel and decided to push on to Adel's Grove as the sea of caravans parked by the river is to overwhelming and not for us this time.

The road into Adels is great for the first 17kms being bitumen, the next 45kms well graded road as it is mining area - the zinc is piped underground to Karumba. The last 12kms hasnt ever seen a grader we decide it is a slow 12kms even after dropping the tyres.

We arrive to the beautiful oasis in the outback and we can either stay in the powered site area - pretty sparse or go into the Grove which has plenty of spring fed water you can cart and no power - we decide this is us and head down to find a very lucky spot right on the Lawn Hill Creek, the gods were smiling and so were we.

The LH Creek is a beautiful sight every day and we enjoyed a canoe and many a cool clear swim in it, the water has a dusty looking film on it which we find out is actually calcium coming up from the creek floor and part of the regions rock formation over the hundreds of years.

We visit Site D at Riversleigh which is a Heritage site with a great walk around the site to see fossilized turtle, croc and the Big Bird - check out the photos.

We also head into the actually Lawn Hill National Park and it is a well set up visitors area and a very barren camp ground. The main attraction is the Indarra Falls and the walks around the top of the park, the canoe ride you can take and the Solar Powered boat trip. We trek off to the falls which is truely a marvel the water is amazing and the rock formation is breathtaking. There is a an upper and lower gorge and the water temperature sits around 26-28 degrees. The gorges have come to be due to the calcium build up over the years coming up from the bottom of the creek floor and settling on the top and collecting debris and slowing forming a crust and then fossilized rock. A great day out.

We have spent 5 lovely night in this area and it is now time to move onto our next venture and Normanton and the Purple Pub.

From the great outdoors

Alida and Mal