Day 54 Tuesday 31st of August 2010 & postscript

A slightly subdued morning as we realise tonight is our last at Lawn Hill. I took a quick spin up to the internet café to check if our site was free and take a couple more days but alas it was booked.

I paddled Titanic II to Indarri Falls while Susan walked. We then carried it above the falls and paddled through the next gorge and up to a shallow run where we decided not to attempt to climb the very minor rapids and paddled back to the falls. No crocodiles sighted. However at one stage a small snake about 60cm long swam under the boat and out the other side with its head under water and popping up now and then for air. Susan again alighted and I paddled slowly back and of course sighted a small croc on a branch which appeared in no hurry to swim away. My camera was with Susan on the walking track.

The weather here has been a bit tropical today with heavy broken cloud early with a few drops of rain giving way to bouts of sun between the clouds and quite breezy. After lunch we took the opportunity to do a bit of housekeeping. I cleaned both cameras and the laptop and took the opportunity to read both camera manuals! Susan had a nap, well tried to, the ants kept biting her.

For the ichthyologists among you species I have sighted at Lawn Hill are as follows,
Archer fish, Black striped grunter, Bony bream, Sooty grunter, Barcoo grunter (very pretty), Long Tom (sort of like a sabre toothed garfish, but with 2 bills).

Tomorrow, packing and on to Gregory Downs most probably.

This is a very nice spot and we will be sad to leave.

Cheers Simon



……POSTSCRIPT


Captain Simon


Lawn Hill Upper Gorge


We have now added a couple more names to our list of travellers met and stories shared with…. Bob and Jenny from Kingaroy who we met on the Dwidarri walk and have since shared a couple of chats with, came past this morning for a final farewell before they set out for Gregory Downs and ultimately home, a cup of coffee is on offer if we get to visit Kingaroy. The couple were quite knowledgeable about birds and finally managed to get a couple of shots of a purple capped wren which Simon got some shots of yesterday, I offered to share one of our shots and will send via email. We also farewelled Alice and George from Perth who we shared drinks with last night, George kindly giving Simon a can for tonight, note to self, VB for reciprocal drinks when we hit the west.

Today’s paddle up the river showed the rock colours at their best, a superb trip, the paddling was a little ordinary, I am ok as long as I get directions, interestingly I am interpreting left and right correctly when shouted from my enthusiastic coxswain…. I was going to paddle the Titanic II back to camp but just could not get coordinated to do it, my rowing style backwards is reasonable, but I wanted to row looking in the direction of travel, after exasperated mutterings from Simon on the bank and some giggles from other onlookers I was actually relieved to walk back to camp.

Another book finished, I like this idea of book swaps in the laundries of caravan parks. Here in Queensland they seem to involve a gold coin donation to the RFDS as well though.

Susan