When we arrived at Chillagoe is was very hot.
We stayed at the Eco park under what we assumed was the only shady tree in far north Queensland.
A great stay (2 nights) we struck out early one morning to see the famous balancing rock - a 5 min drive and 10 min walk away from Chillagoe itself.
We then set out to see the old Furnaces at the Smelter. These were quite interesting and the view from the lookout was awesome. It was stinking hot by 8am so we headed back to camp.
We visited the ranger station to ask about the roads ahead for safety reasons and were advised to download the Topographic maps which we did. The road we wished to follow was very off the beaten track and remote - and just heading into the wet season we were sure to let them know where we were going.
We had a look at the pub and left our mark here
We toured a couple of the local caves. We did "Donna" and "Trezkinn".
We dropped in to see "Dave"
We headed out the next day toward Hughes crossing where we intended to cross the Mitchell river. At this point we would be very off the grid. The terrain was flat and very bare.
Not much water in the crossing (Hughes).
We got the car with the van attached bogged in a croc infested river bank (very grainy dry sand which was up to a mtr deep, and looked very solid).
A station owner dropped in by Helicopter to offer help, but we managed to dig it out. 2.5 hours in 44 deg heat - the sand was baking hot.
A passing 4WD also assisted
And I unhitched the van to tow it out backwards. We stayed one night here and I slept outside - it was shockingly hot.
The next day we headed to Normonton - first we followed the north bank of the Mitchel toward Drumduff station - it sure was a rough road. Then we crossed the Mitchell (both times very little water).
This was a huge 7 hour drive, but we did it due to the heat. The aircon was like heaven.
After a night in Normonton we did a day drive to Kurumba (about 1 hr away), it was 42 deg. Not much to see and little was open - the Barra fishing breeding centre closed 4 mins before we arrived so we missed that.
In Normonton we met up again with Mark and Robyn (who also have a Jawa). We had initially met them in Atherton at the Supermarket.
We saw Krys the croc (huge!), went to the purple pub and swam in the massive camp pool.
We had pizza night - Allie found a Pizza Oven in the camp:-p
We stayed a couple of nights before heading to Liechardt Falls.
We woke the next day to heat and dust storms. We stayed 2 nights - no swimming here.
We agreed to catch up with Mark and Rob at the Meatworks camp (Camp 16) in Burketown. We stayed 2 or 3 nights here. Lots of fish but no catching.
Following this we headed a couple of hours south to Gregory downs (on the Gregory River).
What an awesome camp. Gorgeous fresh swimmable water. This one is well worth a stay.
Here we met with Judy and Bernard, we stayed with Mark and Robyn here also. As a group we headed out for dinner at the pub before walking home through the bush in the dark - there was a massive lightning storm which only stopped as we got out our cameras lol.
9th Nov we sadly departed our awesome camp and went looking for the mythical Mellish Park camp - we did not manage to find this camp however, so we headed down toward Lawn Hill Gorge for our next stop.
Below is the whole route.
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