places to visit in gulf

Ellen, We are heading that way in mid July and have spoken to people who were up ther last year and spoke highly of Kingfisher Camp. They rated it better than Adels (for camping conditions anyway). Sorry I dont have any first hand info but that will change soon. Happy travels.
Craig

Leighardt falls looked very nice but we didnt stop there.Adels Grove was a beautiful spot,we stayed a week.Gregory downs didnt look to have much.Kingfisher Camp(KFC) looked nice also,wished we had have stopped there but didnt(good excuse to go back).Burke Town didnt have much but still worth a day.

Lawn Hill Gorge is a gem. Kingfisher Camp is great...there was a post on here the other day about roads being closed up there around Bowthorn Station..you might want to check that out. The lady who runs Bowthorn wrote a book called Pieces of Blue...very good. Name is Kerry but can't remember surname. I'm getting old!!

Burketown is interesting. It's a pity about Escott. We stayed there way back in 1994..were there for their campdraft/rodeo ...plenty of action!! Anyway, things change.

You may have already been to Chillagoe but it's an interesting little place...if you weren't going on the road from there across to Dorunda but on the Georgetown road instead then the Undara Lava Tubes, Tallaroo Hot Springs and Cobbald Gorge are all well worth visiting. The little town of Einasleigh is worth a look too...great old pub there.

You used to be able to go to the coast from both Wollogorang and Hell's Gate but don't know if you can do that now. We went from Wollogorang and it was unbelievable..we had the whole beach to ourselves. If you phone either of these places you'd find out.

Hope you see a morning glory roll in...would be fantastic to see that. Best wishes and enjoy yourselves.

where the road just sth of normanton crosses the flinders river....free camping, isolation,shade, freshwater,barra. when i stayed there the grazier just left the gates open so people could use as they please, and quite a decent stretch of river, not just near the crossing....unusual of land owners to be so tolerant and helpful towards tourists, esp with the garbage some people leave behind

Sorry to hear that Dorunda Station is now closed but you will find sone nice free camping spots on the river crossings between Chillagoe and Karumba.Karumba is a great place to spend a few days with good fishing andI would reccomend staying at the Sunset c.p.Escott has been closed for a while which is a shame as is a lovely spot.Ienjoyed Gregory Downs with great food at the pub and camping on the Gregory river.Adels grove is a nice stay for visiting Lawn Hill (a must) but it is a short drive to the park.Kingfiser Camp is right on the river with good fishing if you have a dinghy--take your nets for redclaw.The caravan park has lots of shady sites and is very peacefull.Wollogorang is closed which was no loss to me as I found them most unfriendly.Access to yhe coast at Hells Gate is also closedcunless you can get a contact with the locals at Dooadgee reserve.A place worh visiting is King Ash Bay fishing camp --again if you have a dinghy.It is about 40kms out of Borroloola on good gravel road.Another very nice spot is Loreela Springs where you can get access to the coast.From there heading to Roper Bar is Limmen Bight fishing camp, again on the river with good camping and fishing.From there there is a nice free camp spot at Towns River crossing and at St .Vidgeon Ruins which has a nice big Lagoon.Then comes Roper Bar which has a great Caravan Park on the river.The road out to Port Roper is a bit of a challenge and not much yhere unless you want mud crabs.From PortRoper to Mattaranka there is Elsey N.Park with camping on the river and then you hit civilisation at Mataaranka.
Hope this helps and you will find many other places on your own if you like exploring---cheers!

Hi Ellen,

I just got back from Burketown last night. A lot of the roads up that way are still not open. Here is a link to some photos from up there ( Burketown) and on the last two pages there are some photos of the Leichardt Falls. Most of the photos are from early April but I have just added some more from when I went back up to pick up my car and boat. You can see how much silt there is around the crossing across the top of the falls and there is probably damage to the crossing itself. The water in the middle was about 400mm deep still and flowing pretty fast. Those photos were taken on Sunday morning so they are pretty recent. I don't know how far they have to let it go down before they can repair anything and it is definitely not open at the moment. You can also see how much water is going over the falls still as there were four seperate areas that were running water and two of those were pumping a lot of water.

In addition the road from Burketown to Doomadgee is not yet open and there was some flooding in the creeks up that way as recently as about ten days ago. I know that a lot of the salt flat areas up around Burketown would be totally impassable for months yet as there has just been too much water very late in the season thanks to cyclone Larry and a lot of other rain since then as well. Some of the roads that get you to the coast up there would have to go over salt flats and I would be very cautious.

As far as camping goes I saw some places people had been camping on the eastern side of the Leichardt Falls when we were up there last year so I am sure you would be able to set up there.

Lawn Hill is an amazing place and we found Adels Grove to be a good place to camp. The people were friendly and helpful and they run tours to Lawn Hill and to the Riversleigh fossil field if you want to take a break from driving yourself.

Hope that helps some, Tim.