Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip - Summary

I left the Gold Coast on Good Friday morning and after 2 and a bit days of driving (2250 kms ) I finally got to Lawn Hill National Park. The walks and kayaking up the gorge were spectacular, as were Wayne and Anne's desserts in the evening. It was pretty hot during the day so early morning was the best time for walking and the afternoon could be spent swimming. I packed up and left on Thursday the 24 th stopping in at the Age of Dinosaurs display just outside of Winton on the way home. It was an interesting place to visit and the tour of the lab area was especially good. I also visited mum and dad at Caloundra on the way and finally got home Sunday (27 th) evening. All up I covered 4822 kms using around 550 litres of diesel (11.6 l/100 km) which ended up costing just under $950. Thanks to Wayne, Anne and the kids, Ben and Meg and Phil and Shane for making this such an enjoyable trip. No thanks to the flies. Below shows the GPS track recorded by my SPOT tracker. 

Photos from the trip can be found on my Picasa site :- https://picasaweb.google.com/108619961450363964837/Easter2014LawnHillTrip?noredirect=1

All up a great trip and I'll certainly go back to Lawn Hill but at a cooler time of year. 

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 10

I had a very restful day, spent at mum and dad's place at Caloundra catching up with family who were gathered for my Nephew's birthday. To dodge the traffic jams heading back south from the Sunshine Coast I left Caloundra just before 6 pm and had a great run home for the last part of this trip. I was back home just before 8 pm and the car was unpacked by 8:30 pm. In total I had driven 4,822 kms over the previous 10 days and had a great time. 

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 9

I got up at 6:30 am as the sun was coming up. Someone needs to recalibrate the Roosters in Alpha as the were crowing randomly from about 5 am while the local Kookaburras were almost dead accurate with their calls as the sun came up. There had been a fairly heavy dew overnight for the first time and the tent was a bit damp on the outside. Had a quick pack up and left at 6:45 am, driving east into the rising sun wasn't much fun for awhile. Got to Emerald and refueled at around 8:30 am and ran into Wayne, Anne and the kids as they came into fuel up after having Brekky at Maccas. Then I found some breakfast and headed east again. 

Finally turned south onto the A3 and headed towards Biloela. Had an early lunch at a great little bakery on the way into town and I was returning to the car, Wayne and company drove past waving. I passed them later on as they stopped at a rest area in Monto. I refueled at Gayndah and guess who I saw drive past just as I was getting back onto the road. They stopped not much further at another rest area (Bin Bin I think) and I continued on south. 

I turned off the A3 at Tansey and headed to Kilkivan and then onto the main highway just north of Gympie where of course I got stuck behind someone doing at least 10 km per hour less than the speed limit. Then all the traffic lights in Gympie conspired to turn red just as I got to them. The only good thing was the new bit of road that was opened to the south of Gympie, very nice cruising at 110 km/hr until being dragged back to reality and a 90 km/hr single land road. In the background the sunset was looking pretty spectacular. Then a simple drive down the main road until I turned off to go to mum and dad's place at Caloundra for the night, arriving about 6pm and looking forward to a nice hot shower and a soft bed inside for a change. For the whole day the temperature gauge in the Paj didn't get over 30 deg, a first since the start of the trip.

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 8

Got up a bit after 6:30 am while it was still darkish. I packed up and a breakfast of an Ice Break iced coffe and hit the road about 7 am when the sun was above the horizon and I headed south towards Winton. I eventually found the sign to the waterhole (Combo Waterhole Conservation Park) just south of Kynuna and about 200 kms away from where I thought it would be. Just past Winton I decided to drop in and have a look at the "Age of Dinosaurs" display. It was well setup and I quite enjoyed the tour of their fossil processng lab. 

Then it was on to Longreach to refuel the car and myself. All the way down from Cloncurry it felt like I had been driving into a headwind and it showed in the fuel economy with the downhill (north to south) trip using an extra 1.5 l/100 km. In Barcaldine I had to blow into the breathalyzer at an RBT for a bored looking policeman who sent me on my way after recording zero alcohol. As I'm going to visit Mum and Dad in Caloundra on the way home I took the turnoff to Alpha and will go a different way home. I got to Alpha at about 4:30 pm and decided to call it quits for the evening rather than trying to make it to Emerald before the sun went down. I set up camp in the caravan park and caught up with my blog before having a nice hot shower and heading to bed early. 

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 7

It was still overcast in the morning, so I didn't get out of bed until 7'ish. I wanted to do the remaining walks while it was still cool, so I packed the backpack with some water and wandered off to the Cascades. This was a relatively easy walk and didn't take long. 

On the way back I decided to try the climb up the Island Stack as my knees weren't feeling too bad. I took the climb slowly, pausing to take photos regularly, that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it. At the lookout on the top the view back down the gorge was spectacular. 

I then did the walk around the top before heading back down the steep section and going back to camp. 

All up approximately 3.5 kms over about 2 hours and many litres of sweat.

I went up to see Wayne and Anne and crew and they were almost packed, so I headed back to camp for breakfast and an ibuprofen or two. They left about half an hour later heading towards Julia Creek. I had also decided to leave today but I would pack up a bit more slowly, however while my tent was still in shade I decided to get it all done. It ended up that I was packed and showered and ready to go by 11 am, so I headed off back the same way I came in. The gravel road was fine and there was no other traffic to kick up any dust, then once the bitumen started it became a very easy drive. Only the odd cow or horse wanted to get in my way. 

I powered past Gregory Downs, Burke and Wills roadhouse and onto Cloncury where I refueled the car and had a quick snack at around 4 pm. I thought I remembered seeing a sign to a waterhole just south of Cloncurry and thought that would be a good place to camp for the night. But, my memory must have been playing tricks and I couldn't find it, so I ended up driving onto McKinlay where I stopped at the local caravan park for the evening. Then once I had set up the tent and had a shower a refrigerated truck pulled into the servo just down the road and it looks like I'll have a noisey evening as they run their fridges all night. Serves me right for not finding a quiet place off by the side of the road somewhere. I went to bed early and wrote up my blog and read a book for awhile. Luckily the truck was only there for a few hours and everything quieted down when it left. 

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 6

As it's been so hot I decided to do a few walks in the morning. So I got out of bed around 7'ish and had an excellent bacon and egg wrap for Brekky and then started getting packed for the walk. Lots of water and swimming togs in case it got too hot. I had the spot tracker as well but of course I forgot to take the Fitbit. I left around 8 am after saying goodbye to Phil who was packing up to head home via the more scenic coast road and found that Wayne, Anne and company weren't interested in a walk as they were just getting up. I had decided to do just a shot walk around to Indarri Falls and Duwadarri lookouts but once I got to Indarri Falls and I was feeling pretty good so I decided to head onto the upper gorge lookout. 

The weather was overcast and a little bit cooler than yesterday but I still had to drink heaps of water and take a few stops, mainly to take photos of course and not to have a rest. :) The walk along beside the gorge was very pleasant and shady. 

I eventually got to the turnoff to the upper gorge lookout and then the going started to get tough as the climb got steep and because it was exposed it got hotter as well. The view both up and down the gorges was spectacular from the lookout and well worth the effort.  

Then it was time to walk back to the campsite via the inland track and thankfully it was relatively flat but hot. 

I took the route past the Indarri Falls Lookout which then wound across to Duwadarri lookout where you could see out over both the ranger station and the camp grounds. 

The track down to the campsite however was very steep and the knees were protesting severely, so I just took it slow and easy. I dropped in to see Wayne and Anne on the way past their camp site and they were worried that the overcast sky wouldn't let their small solar panel farm keep up with the demands of both the freezer and fridge, so they ended up running their car for awhile. 

I was back in camp about 7.5 kms and three hours later and feeling worn out. So after lots of cold drinks and a light lunch I decided to just laze around camp for the arvo. I tried moving the solar panels around to get the best charge but with overcast skies it was hard to tell when the tree shadows covered the panels. We then had about 10 drops of rain, it wasn't even enough to make the car look wet. The weather radar is showing lots of clouds and rain to the north in the gulf but it doesn't look like it'll come down this way. I spent some time getting the car into some sort of order and charging a multitude of batteries before having an early dinner and then heading down to see Wayne, Anne and company and then getting to bed rather early. 

Easter 2014 Lawn Hill trip Day 5

I had a little sleep in today as the shoulders and knees were still a bit tender after the exertions of yesterday. After a leisurely Brekky I did a few things around camp and wrote up my blog of the epic adventures of the previous day. Wayne, Anne, and company got up really early and climbed to the top of Island Stack to see the sunrise. After lunch we all went for drive out to the Riversleigh Fossil site about 55 kms away. 

The site doesn't seem to have changed since I was there in 2005 and the self guided walk doesn't really show you many fossils.  

It was hot wandering up the hill and around the site, so we decided to head down the road another couple of kms to the Gregory River crossing and have a swim. The fast flowing water was perfect and very refreshing. 

Then it was back to camp for some chocolate birthday cake for afternoon tea and then a bit of a rest before dinner. Dessert  at Wayne and Anne's campsite consisted of chocolate Easter egg cake and ice cream and was the perfect way to end the day.