Gulf and Kakadu tour, 2015 Day 6 and 7

The shade shelter took awhile to pack up but we were ready to leave the lagoon at about 8:15 am. We headed west but had to make some detours to get to the Savanah Way because of road works. The detour involved the opening and closing of several gates but was otherwise uneventful. We got to Burketown around lunch time so we refuelled the cars and then had lunch at quite a nice bakery. I tried the Barra pie which was ok but not wonderful. 

Then it was onto Gregory Downs  before turning west to Lawn Hill. The road was much better than when I was here at Easter last year and this made the driving much easier.

We got into the national park just after 3 pm and set up camp, as the car wouldn't be moving and there was a bit of wind I used the normal ASS setup. 

Afterwards we explored the camp site and water for awhile before having dinner and chatting about our plans for the next day. Then it was an early night in bed. 

We were going to go canoeing early but as the sun doesn't get up too early we delayed until it had warmed up a bit. In the meantime I inflated my kayak and then went for a walk up to the top of Island Stack to take some photos down the gorge. 

At about 10'ish the others rented a couple of kayaks and we set off on a grand expedition up the gorge. 

As always happens to me there seemed to be a bit of a head wind that we were paddling into. 

Getting out of my inflatable kayak at the portage point to the next gorge was difficult as the water level was low and the kayak not as stable as the hard shell ones. Then the next gorge also seemed to have a head wind but the sights were worth the effort. 

The stream into the third gorge was narrow so the water flowed a little faster making it hard to paddle this section but it wasn't too long until it opened out. We got to the far end where there were a couple of small waterfalls that meant we weren't going any further. Luckily I managed to turn around a this point without capsizing like I did last time I was here. The paddle back seemed to take ages as my shoulders were getting a bit sore but at least there was no headwind. We got back to the camp area just after midday and I setup the kayak to dry out so it could be packed up. As I was already wet I went and had a cold shower before having some lunch and a couple of ibuprofens for my shoulders. I then had a very lazy afternoon while the others went on a couple of the walks around the park. As we were heading off in the morning I repacked the car and had an early dinner and an early night in bed.