We had been warned the road in to Lawn Hill was bad and they were right. It was one of the roughest we had encountered so far. We pulled over after about 30 k to let our ties down before continued on. Everything was dry and dusty. Several cars passed us. It was hard to see them coming up behind us through our dust. They would suddenly appear and then were gone, leaving us in their dust. We averaged 40k, in some places we even had to drop down to 10k. It was 85 k but it took us over 2 hours to arrive at the nature park and we thought that was good.

When we entered the van after we had arrived there was a lovely layer of dust over everything. The fine dust gets into everything even all the cupboards. Great. First job cleaning. I didn’t clean everything knowing in 4 days we will be traveling the same road again so only the thing we would be using go the once over. It would be a waste of time to do more than was needed.

We took a walk up to the falls. It was almost a k away. They didn’t tell you on the sign the last 180 meters; half was up a steep cliff then the other half straight down.

It was worth the climb. We had walked though dry bush land in silence. We were almost at the top of the cliff we heard the roar of the water then in moments we set our eyes onto the oasis. It was mind blowing to suddenly reach the top and to look down into a different world. Wow oh wow. For such small waterfalls they made a lot of noise.

As I made my way down the steep rocky decent I had the nursery rhyme pop into my head, ‘Jack be nimble Jack be quick. Jack don’t fall down the steep cliff. Ok not the original words but it made me laugh as I carefully made my way down. I think of some strange things sometimes. A family was sitting beside the water with canoes. (You can hire them at the bush camp) The young girl was trying to catch march flys to feed to the fish. The fish waited patiently in front of her with a side swish of their tails, barely moving waiting for the fly.

The swim was lovely. You had a choice you could swim in the lower area or you could walk to the upper area and swim there. It was set up so you could carry the canoes and continue up the river. We took a walk up there but decided to give it a miss. I had taken my waterproof camera into the water with me to take that fantastic shot when the lens started to get misty. I though it was water on the lens and tried to wipe it away. It was water on the lens but not on the outside. When we got back to the shore I realized water was inside the camera. Not happy. I turned to Adrian and said, “Look on the bright side of things. You know what you can buy me for my birthday now. A new camera.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. He doesn’t do presents and birthdays. If I want something he tells me to go buy it. Where is the fun in that? Me I like presents, not over keen on the birthday bit though.

The only disappointing part of the day was that climb back up the hill for the walk back to the van.

On the first night at Lawn Hill we had several visitors. They came to our spot for dinner. I had never seen that type of tree before but didn’t pay much interest in it until the birds came. The parrots started to munch away at the seeds keeping one eye on us.

In the evening Adrian paddled up the river to where we had spent most of the day. He came back with stories about how lovely it was. He told me he was going to go paddling the next morning before it became too hot. The temperature was reaching 38 to 40 in the day and dropping down to a cool 27 at night. I wanted to do the walk to the lookout. Adrian said he would go for his paddle first then we could go for the walk then in the afternoon we could go to Adele Grove. Sounded like a plan to me.

Plan B: By the time we got up and then had breakfast, then fluffed around it was 11:00 am. We drove to Adele’s Grove. We took the scenic walk around the grounds. While it is a nice van park, for me it didn’t compare to the national park. It is the dry season and it showed in the water. There was a scum across the top of the water making it look uninviting. The water has a green tinge to it. Although the water hasn’t been tested it is believed to be green because of freshwater algae. The warm temperatures all year round allow the algae to thrive. The algae don’t seem to affect the wild life or plant life, as there is a long list of birds, plants, crustaceans, amphibians, shellfish and reptiles that live in or on the river. With such a long list you would have thought we would have seen something but no, it was just the green water.

We had lunch, $8 special fish and chips. Adrian had a beer $8 and I had a cider $9. It was one of those lazy day lunches, which you could curl up and go to sleep after. Instead we were shaken awake with the drive back to the van.

We made sure we were up and ready early enough to go for the walk to the lookout the next day. It wasn’t an easy walk climbing. In some areas there was no pathway, mind you we are getting use to that. Then there was the clambering over rocks as well. At the end of the day I can say Australian is a truly amazing place. The view was awesome. The track took us up and along the top of the gorge. Breathtaking. Then it continued down into the falls. Well worth the walk, did I say the view was amazing? No, well it was amazing.

Not just the view. There were other things to look at as well. Tiny little flowers were scatted along the path and we saw several lizards. Every now and again something caught my eye.

Another swim latter we were sitting on the jetty and looking down to see the fish waiting to be fed. We tried to catch some flies but they were too quick for us. I then remembered I had some tomato sauce in my backpack (Don’t ask me why, I have forgotten why it was there myself.) When I picked the satchel up I found one to be sweet chilli and the other one to be tartar sauce. I go the little packet and started to feed it to the fish. There was a feeding frenzy with the biggest ones winning. They seemed to like the sauces as they floated there waiting for more.

That evening I took the canoe up the river. I am not as strong a paddler as Adrian so I wasn’t expecting to make it to the falls. I was so engrossed with the scenery that I was there before I realized it. The waterfall took on a new look from the angle of the boat. Love it. I took my time coming back enjoying the view. Adrian was waiting for me when I arrived back to help. It was a bit of a struggle for me to carry the canoe back to the van after all the paddling. I would never have made it without Adrian.

We were not looking forward to the road out. We checked everything before we headed off. Putting an elastic band on the toilet roll to keep everything in place. The only problem was the side window, kept on opening with the vibrations and we had to keep stopping to close it.