From Croydon, we drove to Gregory Downs, another old gold mining town, now defunct. There are free camping places on the beautiful Gregory River, not far out of town. But with no amenities and with many many caravans and campers down there already, we opted to stay in the grounds of the Gregory Downs Hotel.
Unfortunately the pub closes at 7pm on a Sunday so no meals available. We went to the bar hoping to find out the condition of the road to be taken in the morning. Someone in the caravan park in Croydon, said the road was so bad that she needed 3 days to recover from it. She told us that they drove out of Lawn Hill (Boodjamulla) at 25 klms per hour and their caravan was shaken to bits!
At the pub, we met a local station owner, who also thought the road was pretty bad. Then went on to say that the locals were used to these sort of road conditions and that they didn't really worry about them.
His property was 40 klms out of Gregory Downs. He ran 30,000 head of cattle and he was up to his third muster for the season. The property can only dustain one cow per each 30 acres. So we reckon the station must have been 900,000 acres. He called it a small property! He ran the station with only one other person.
All the cattle were driven to Cloncurry, where his brother owned another station. Here the cattle were placed in feed lots to fatten them up, or put into pasture fields, depending on their condition, ready for the abbatoir.
His father owned another similar sized property near Foster and he was going down to help hm with the mustering of his cattle. Dad is 78 and still running the farm basically on his own; checking fences and water, daily.
Early next morning we set for one of our favorite places in Australia, the stunningly beautiful Boodjamulla. NP (Lawn Hill).
State of the road? It was just a typical dirt road, some corregations, some dust, lots of stones - not a bother!
We had had to wait a week before being able to book a camping site for three days in the national park. When we got there, there weren't many people, so we assume that the sites had been booked and paid for but noone had showed up to camp there.
We chose the same site that we have had every visit. The old wooden posts and rails had been replaced by plastic, so our nails weren't still there from previous camping as had been the case previously.
Our new screw in pegs, were sensational as the ground there is very hard and rocky. So for the three days of our stay we had the luxury of the annex. As always it is very dry and dusty, so every bit of shade you can create is a bonus.
The gorge and river are as beautiful as ever. We took the opportunity to swim snd relax, only doing one of the very easy walks to the cascades. Being st the end of the dry season, there really wasn't a cascade, just a single trickle of water coming down a series of tuffa rocks. We watched archer fish and turtles react enthusiastically to the plopping of figs from the overhanging fig trees as they fell into the water. These were fought over and gobbled as soon as possible to ensure noone else had a chance to eat them.
The bird life around the river is truly astounding, and several groups of intense bird watchers sat in chairs alongside the river banks, with binoculars, bird lists and bird books. Every so often there would be some debate about a bird species, with discussions about eye colour, tail, and beak shape as well as colouring and size. It appears that bird watchers from around Australia snd the world come here to study the bird life.
Unfortunately three days passed way too quickly and we needed to move on.
The road between Gregory River and Doomadgee.
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