Lawn Hill

Day 25 - Sunday 30th Sept - Gregory Downs to Lawn Hill - by "Chris"

Waking up next to the Gregory River was a fantastic way to start the day. Amy won the competition for getting up first to have a swim but Mikayla pipped her at the post with a surprise dash to the water from the tent, so we had two winners! We all had a great cooked breakfast of eggs and bacon. Everyone then had lots of swims in the fast flowing river, the highlight being to ride the blow up boogie boards down the creek. We packed up just before lunch and headed to Lawn Hill. The road to Lawn Hill was quite rough in patches. We called in to have a look at Adels Grove on the way before we found our camp sites at the Lawn Hill national park and set up. It was hot (35 degrees) in the middle of the day so we were wondering why we had left the Gregory River! However once we went for a walk down to the gorge we realised that this also was a fantastic place and immediately went for a swim in the clear, emerald-green, still water. We all went for a walk to the Indarri Falls (but Trudy stayed back at camp with Amy who had a migrane) which was pleasant through the bush. Up over the last hill we weren't prepared for the wonderful swimming playground area below. This included the river, lagoon, waterfalls, rocks to climb on, ledges to jump off into the water, and lots of fish. Our favourite fish is the Archer fish because if you hold your hand above the water as if it is a branch it will spit a stream of water directly at your hand. It uses this mechanism to knock an insect off a branch/leaf to fall into the water for fish food. They are incredibly accurate and lots of fun to play with. We walked back to camp, had another nice BBQ dinner, then watched a DVD outside in the pleasant cool of evening.

We had fun floating down Gregory river on boogie boards

Road trains frequent these outback roads

Coming in to the Lawn Hill national park

Computer work in the shade at our lawn hill camp site

Swimming at Indarri falls in the Lawn Hill gorge

Ryan jumping in

An Archer fish squirting at Chris

Looking out over Indarri Falls

Day 26 - Monday 1st Oct - Lawn Hill Day 2 - by "Amy"

In the morning Dad went to the canoe hire place to reserve enough canoes for both the Hanna and our families before they closed at lunchtime today. Luckily he got there in time to get 1 three man and 1 two man canoe for each family. The canoe hire man was lovely to let us have the canoe's for the whole day (not just for 2 hours) if we paid a $50 deposit because he was leaving at 12 o'clock. So we all got in the canoes and slowly paddled up to Indarri falls. Along the way we saw 2 turtles sunbaking on a rock and a log. At the Indarri falls we hooked the canoes up and had a swim to the waterfall and behind it, and played with the Archer fish getting them to squirt water at us. Harry was funny swimming around under the water with his goggles on trying to catch fish and popping up scaring people, and Ryan was funny trying to get barramundi to  bite his toes. Then we got the canoes out of the water and carried them around the corner to put them in the next section of the gorge up above the waterfall. Then we paddled to the Upper Gorge as far as we could go. Once again we got out of the canoes and went for another swim. At this spot there was a little waterfall rapid that we could float down which was fun.On the way back we had another swim at the Indarri falls again before paddling back to camp. Mikayla spotted a turtle sleeping in a crack in the wall of the gorge rocks. We tied the canoes up at the steps near our camp but took the oars and life jackets with us. We walked back at to the tents and had afternoon nibbles and a little dance party before the mums made dinner. For dinner we had taco's which were very nice. After we had dinner the Hanna's came to our tent to chat, then we had to go to bed.

Paddling up the Lawn Hill gorge in our canoes

Inside the waterfall

Amy in the canoe

Mikayla, Ryan and Chris looking for turtles

Amy pulling Mikayla's canoe up at the Upper Gorge

Swimming in the fast flowing creek at Upper Gorge

Day 27 - Tuesday 2nd Oct - Lawn Hill Day 3 - by "Ryan"

As I woke up and got out of my speedy tent I went over to say goodbye to the Hanna's who were packing up to drive home after a couple of great weeks of holidaying together. We all said goodbye then after watching them drive off I had some cereal for breakfast. While it was still a cooler temperature we decided to do a walk to the Island stack lookout. Most of the walk was flat through the rainforest with a challenging steep bit to climb at the end. The view was really good as we could see along the gorge and we could see other canoe's paddling along. While we were on the top of the hill we rang Nana to say Happy Birthday. Mum wanted to look at the view from the stack at another angle so we went for a walk and took more photo's before walking back to camp. It was getting hot (35 degrees) so we relaxed in the shade and updated the blog then went for a drive to Adels Grove to have lunch. We went for a walk to look at the creek there and saw a Olive Python snake at the base of a tree which was about 1.5 metres long. We got some wedges and a drink for lunch at the pub and relaxed in the shade. The wedges were delicious with sour cream, sweat chilli sauce, and some gravy. Dad was so relaxed he even fell asleep in his chair. We got paddle pop icecreams on the way out and Mikayla won a free one. Back at our camp site we relaxed some more then did a walk to the falls again because Amy and Mum hadn't been there. The walk was nice and we had a good swim when we got there. Mum climbed up to a lookout to get photos while dad taught me different ways to do bombs into the water. We walked back to camp and swam in tyre tubes in the warm water then went back to have chicken schnitzels for dinner. Mum was fascinated with the power of my head light torch which made the eyes of the spiders shine - there were so many spiders everywhere! 

Cluster Figs

Climbing up the Island stack at Lawn Hill

The view from the lookout of the gorge below

An Olive Python we saw on our walk

Adels Grove creek

A lizard  in the rocks

Chris and Amy on our walk to the gorge for a swim

Looking out over middle gorge

Fun in the tyre tubes

Take care and stay warm !

Please let us know what you like or even your favoritie picture via a "comment".Just press the "comments" word after the pictures, write your comment , use the "Preview" to check and then "Publish" - Thx

Rough map of our trip so far ......