We have now entered our entered the sixth state/territory of our journey and are just a couple of hundred kms off the 20,000 km mark (we are deliberately not looking at the total fuel cost to get this far). Things started to get hot almost as soon as we crossed the NT border and we haven’t had a day less than 35oC since leaving Qld! But before I get ahead of myself, I must write something about Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, which is currently taking out the top spot on our favourite places list.
The park is on the Qld-NT border, about 150 km south of the Gulf. It is described as an oasis in the surrounding Gulf country desert, and while I am usually very sceptical about such self-aggrandising claims, I really do have to agree in this instance. The 500 km drive from Karumba to Lawn Hill travels through some very flat, very dry, very grazed and very monotonous country. Then, all of a sudden, a large gorge appears. Once inside the gorge the country is greener and cooler with a river running in between 30+ meter high sandstone cliffs. We camped right next to the river at the national park campsite. We managed to overlap by one night with our fellow 30-something nomading friends and had a great time comparing travels tales and blowing our beer rations! We then did every bushwalk on offer, canoed up the gorge (and made friends with a freshwater croc “Fred the Freshie”) and swam and inner tubed down the river. We also added some great new birds to the list, including the Arafura Fantail and the Purple-crowned Fairy Wren. It truly was a delightful few days.
After leaving our oasis, we had one more night in Qld. Troopy decided to voice her objection about leaving Qld by cracking her engine pipe (exhaust) about 150 km shy of the border. A quick trip to the mechanic in Doomagee reassured us that we would be ok to keep going to a larger place for repairs but we might soon need ear plugs!! With that in mind, we pushed on along the dirt for the 450 km across the Territory border into Borroloola. By this stage, Troopy was sounding like the most fully sick, hotted up boy racer car you could ever possibly wish for. Borroloola wasn’t really somewhere we wanted to get stuck waiting for parts and so we roared (literally) on towards Katherine – 600 km away. Along the way we had a few great stops at a Lost City (amazing weathered sandstone formations) and the springs near Mataranka. One spot called Bitter Springs was particularly fun. There was a swimming trail about 200 m long where we jumped in with mask and snorkel and floated down to the exit point. The water bubbles up through underground limestone caverns and so is crystal clear and around 30oC. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time floating around there. We also had a quick stop at the Mataranka Homestead and spent a couple of hours whiling away the heat of the day watching “We of the Never Never” – the movie based on the Jeanie Gunn novel about life up here in the 1900s. Ordinary movie, interesting story – we are going to try and find the book.
Click here for Lawn Hill to Katherine photos
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