Father's Day

sunrise calvert river

Father's day pancakes

Happy birthday mum, and happy father’s day to all you dads out there, especially to mine and Peter! Calvert River was a lovely place to wake up for father’s day, the kids had made cards which went down well and I made pancakes which were great, if I say so myself (particularly because I usually burn them). Even with all that we were very impressed that we were on the road by 9.15am and driving East along the Savannah Way. We crossed the border – hello Queensland! – changed my watch, crossed some more rivers, seeing only one little baby freshwater crocodile, and passed through Hells Gate roadhouse to refuel. Apparently Hells Gate is named this because it used to be as far as the Queensland police would go in providing support to those droving cattle over to the lucrative NT market. They would go this far and no further, so after Hells Gate, you were on your own, literally in the wild west! I think there weren’t any police until Borroloola which is a fair distance, leaving lots of space and time for getting done over.

From Hells Gate the next stop for lunch was Doomagee, a small aboriginal community which was almost all closed up (being a Sunday) still had a table in the shade where we could have sandwiches. Three brothers came up while we were there and had a chat – they were fascinated to have a look at the kitchen on our camper trailer, there was even a viewing session of the fridge. It was funny that the oldest one, who must have been 10 or 12 or so, carried around a pram with him which he sat in, kind of like having his own portable armchair. They were interested in where we’d been and asked if we’d seen any goanna as we came, telling us that they are good to eat. We asked how they go about catching them, expecting something resembling a traditional method, but no, they said if you see them in the middle of the road, you just drive over them. I don’t think they were joking either – modern food sourcing method. They were very friendly anyway, although a bit hard to understand sometimes because they spoke very fast and with a bit different pronunciation to what we’re used to.  They directed us around the corner to a post box where Conor could post his letter to Santa (nothing like getting in early) and gave us a big wave when we left.

Pretty soon after Doomagee we turned off the Savannah Way to head down to Lawn Hill NP. This is when the road became smaller and smaller, and rougher, until it was almost like a goat track towards the end. Not that it was small as such, just looked like it isn’t driven on much, and had quite a few river crossings, one of which even went around a corner (although very shallow), so I can see why. I think most people come down on a different angle from Burketown, but we still got here fine. We took only one wrong turn (the signposts were few and far between) and went past Lawn Hill Station where they were mustering cattle, with a big truck waiting in the yard – real cowboys on horses! It was a long driving day for Nick anyway, so it’s nice to set up here for 3 nights – from what we’ve seen before it got dark it looks lovely, and after being a bit scared off by having to book online or over the phone with Qld National Parks before being allowed in here, it’s not even full. We’ve had a nice dinner – the first of the three different pieces of fish that the nice caravan park people in Borroloola gave us, and early to bed.