Wednesday 25th August 2021
Today was to be another big driving day. 490km to the far north west of Queensland. Our destination is the Adels Grove Camping ground at Lawn Hill so we can spend some time in the Boodjamulla National Park. It is a very long way to go for a walk but we are also hoping to go for a paddle in the Lawn Hill Gorge as well. There are a number of walks to explore in the national park.

First things first, the drive. We had a couple options – Mainly dirt road after Normanton or bitumen most of the way. We decided to go via the bitumen this time so I can do some driving as David has only just recovered from our drive on Monday from Chillagoe. We are funny fellows, we drove 560km to the Gulf of Carpentaria for Fish’n’Chips and now we are driving 4490km for a walk and paddle. Hehehe! Hope the walk is better than the fish’n’chips.

Anyway, the initial part of the drive to Normanton was through beautiful plains/wetlands with so many brolgas, we even managed to show a couple to Peyton and just for her they took off flying which was a treat. Just before Normanton we came to a river crossing and David didn’t even get out – he said “Crocs here are all bogus, there is no point even looking”.

I started driving along the Burke development Road from Normanton – it was pretty good, bitumen all the way with the occasional single lane narrow bits. I haven’t really driven for about 4 weeks so I managed 200km 2hrs of driving which is very good going for me. We swapped drivers at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and David continued then along the Wills development Road where we came across a few roadworks sections and then the last stage was dirt/gravel. The scenery was a bit the same most of the way and unfortunately not many animals to report few animals brolgas early in the wetlands, about 3 or 4 emus and a few kangaroos later in the day, some road kill and a few hawks and smaller eagles.

We arrived at Adels Grove campground about 4.30pm, found a spot by the river and instead of rushing off to do a sunset walk as planned, we took it easy, had a bit of a walk around camp  and relaxed instead. We are hoping there are no sandflies and mosquitoes here as I am suffering badly from the sandflies at Kurumba but only time will tell.