After looking around the Atherton Tablelands at all the waterfalls and huge trees we headed west to the longest lava tubes in the world which you can take a guided tour through and it is well worth it. The road follows the Croydon to Normanton railway which is sometimes the only way across in the middle of the wet and stopped where it does at the Gulf of Carpentaria. From there it was over 200 kms of mud and slush to Burketown. On one of the river crossings we could see the crocs rounding up the fish and eating them so decided it was too dangerous to walk any further across so we got back in the car and drove across without checking the depth the whole way.
Millstream Falls and the famous Gulflander motor carriage.
Lawn Hill is near the border of Northern Territory and was the highlight of the trip with this stunning gorge. We stayed a few days canoeing up the gorge and doing all the walks around the place. Apart from one Ranger we had the place to ourselves and didn't want to leave for quite a while. But as we were sitting there relaxing on the river bank the water suddenly started to rise very quickly even though it was hot and sunny. Thought we had better ask what was going on as the river rose by a metre in an hour and was still rising. Well, the Ranger was running towards us to tell us the same thing and said we had to pack up straight away as the south exit track we were going to take crosses this river further up stream where it had been raining and was already flooded and could not be crossed.
Canoeing up the fantastic Lawn Hill NP.
So we headed back the way we came and the bridge where the water had been a couple of metres below on the way in had now been flowing over the top of it! Dropped in at the pub to re-fuel and was told the way we wanted to go would not be passable by now and even the police said they would not come to rescue us if we went that way. We went anyway after all we had already been through, what was a bit more mud and river crossings. Did breathe a sigh of relief when we finally hit the tar 300 kms later and headed into Mount Isa which is the largest producer of silver in the world.
Lawn Hill lower gorge and a Mount Isa winch head frame.
With rain still heading our way from the west, we headed east and managed to stay in front of it and heard later of people that were trapped for 5 weeks including the Leyland family who film a television show of their travels. At McKinlay there is the Walkabout hotel that was used in the Crocodile Dundee movies and at Longreach is the birth place of the second oldest airline in the world forming in 1920 as the Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service ( Qantas ) after the two states they flew in. They even built their own planes under licence in the hanger shown.
Walkabout Ck. hotel from Crocodile Dundee movie and the birth place of Qantas.
Dropped in on the Stockman's Hall of Fame but it was closed being the 25th of December so we will have to check that out some other time. Started to head south towards the border and went out to the Yowah Boulder Opals fields on a rough 4wd track that was not on any map and did some noodling there too and got some good 'color'. The Opal is different here as it is encased in iron stone. From there it was down through NSW and back to our state of Victoria.
Stockman's Hall of Fame and Yowah Opal fields.
One month later and 11,000 kms we were back home and apart from changing an engine mount in Cains, there were no problems at all on roads that claim victims all the time in better conditions.