Adels Grove to NT Border
The next day we packed up and continued the trek up to Adels. We stopped in at the Riversleigh Mammal fossil site to have lunch and a look around. After a look around at the fossils & a full belly we hit the road again. We arrived at Adels Grove that afternoon and checked in for 3 nights. We spent 2 days exploring Lawn Hill National Park and completed all the hikes. Our favourite spots in Lawn Hill would have to of been the Indarri waterfalls, wild dog dreaming track and the upper gorge lookout! Definitely paid to get up early and start the hikes before the days warmed up!
Adels Grove was also magical! Well worth a visit! Awesome fish and chips from the shack! They have tubes you can hire and just float around, an epic rope swing and some hidden gems worth exploring! We loved the fact they were dog friendly, so made traveling into Lawn Hill without rusty a breeze!
After our stay at Adels Grove we headed to Gregory Downs! We had never heard of Gregory Downs until a few fellow travellers mentioned we should definitely go, and it did not disappoint! We spent a total of 6 nights by the river at the free camp, as we loved it that much! The water ran down stream so we could float down a good 200m on our tubes!
The wildlife was amazing at Gregory, birds galore, wallabies just in the bushes behind our camp. The locals did show us a 2.5m fresh water croc which was cool to see! Gregory Downs was action packed with lots of things to keep us entertained! Kurts metal detector came in handy, when we helped a couple in distress! (Separate post to come!) Overall we had a blast at all (Adels, Lawn Hill & Gregory!) It was great being able to swim and relax around in these mini oasis.
We tracked up to Burketown for an overnight stop, free camping out at the boat ramp there. Be sure to stop in at the local bakery and get yourself a ‘Barra-pie’ it was delicious. The following day we tracked towards Doomadgee and up to the Hells Gate roadhouse for our next camp spot. There was a few other campers spread out amongst the campgrounds. Now we found the purist drinking water here. No joke! We emptied all our tanks to fill them up with the Hells Gate water it was so nice. The girl on the desk told us they are trying to get a permit to sell their water as bottled drinking water it’s that good!
Next day we finally crossed our first border into the northern Territory, just west of Hells Gate! After a successful night free camping near a small river, we decided to head north towards the gulf to catch some fish! And that we did! We went to snake lagoon and asked permission to camp up at Greenback station - Cody (the nicest aboriginal guy we have met thus far) approved and gave us some good tips! The station was situated right on the Robinson River and only 5km in from the gulf itself.
As we don't have a tinnie, all our fishing efforts were from the bank and coral shelf! Kurt had the 'catch of the stay' by catching a mud crab, on Amz's pink fishing rod and keeping it enticed enough to get into a bucket! More unbelievable he caught it all on gopro - you have to see it to believe it. Amz caught her first fish for the trip and between us we caught some decent fish that satisfied our fresh fish cravings for a while.
After 3 nights at Greenbank we decided to continue the journey and trekked to Borroloola. We stayed at the local caravan park and stocked up again with food and drinks. Kurt had had a sore ear which was bothering him, so we also visited the local health clinic. The staff were super friendly and the service was free with our Medicare cards - winning! What wasn't cool, was a little kid who threw 2 rocks at our car as we were traveling through - one hit our canopy signage and has left a big dent.
The next day we packed up and left town towards the Nathan river road route! We made a quick pit stop into Caranbirini Conservation Reserve, where we checked out the rock formations - 'lost city'. The short 2km walk was easy enough and gave us our first insight into the unique rock formation.
We then travelled north towards Nathan River Road / Limmen NP. We camped just outside of Limmen at a free camp by a small creek.
Although we were the only ones there, we never felt alone with all the flies buzzing around our head! Luckily by night fall, rusty had captured (eaten) all the flies ones which had made it into our caravan so we had a good night’s sleep.
The next day we tracked up and stopped in at the 'South Lost City' for a look and it was spectacular, a definite must see if traveling through. We opted not to travel to the Western Lost City as it was quite a drive and judging by the wiki camps comments - the south lost city was better! We then continued north and stopped in at Butterfly Springs! Another great spot to stop. The waterfall / springs was not flowing but the water still looked nice. We only wet up to our knees and then continued on.
After a full day on the Nathan River Road we headed to Limmen River Fishing Camp! For only $10 per vehicle you can bush camp and fish in the Limmen Bight River. The owner did warn us, we probably wouldn't catch much off the bank and that we needed a tinnie to do serious fishing.... turns out he was right. Kurt only caught a baby shark the 2 days we spent there. Never the less, was a nice peaceful camp spot by the river.
Tomato Island was in our sights and our next campground of choice! It is also outside the National Park / on Nathan River Road; it had great facilities and such a well maintained campground. Hot showers, phone reception, flushing toilets, fire pits, water taps around and only $6.60pp per night! Plus dogs were allowed! All the camp spots we stayed at along Nathan River Road allowed dogs which was awesome!
So after driving on the Nathan River road over a good few days, we declared it the worst road in Australia! It was worse than any of the Cape York roads, another couple we spoke with said it was worse than the Gibb River road. The constant corrugations, dust holes, sandy corners and intensity of the road was ridiculous! We were lucky not to sustain any damage but be sured that road definitely rattled our Navara and Coromal! [It had clearly not been graded in a while and that was what made it bad to drive].
We had both never looked forward to seeing bitumen and finishing our trek on that road. Kurt may or may not have kissed the black tarmac once we reached it!