July 18^th  2017

We left Lawn Hill this mid morning after a phone chat with Cynthia . We are much relieved to hear her voice on a much stronger note. Later in the day we received a short message from her to say she had passed all the tests for concussion and was allowed to leave this afternoon.

We have had an interesting day driving north of Lawn Hill, through quite remote country, to join the Savannah Way at Doomadgee. Like every day we travel, the scenery is ‘ever changing’ . Firstly we drove through Lawn Hill Station past the stockyards and homestead, which was high on an escarpment. The range of rocky mountains in the distance were beautiful purple and red rock colours. Cattle were in mobs around every waterhole. Many horses were about as well. The station roads were quite good to travel on but dusty. There were very few other travellers coming our way today.

We crossed Lawn Hill Creek several times. Eventually we found a shady place to have our lunch. It was on a lagoon which was part of Elizabeth Creek. The bird life was interesting in that we saw two large Black-necked Storks which are very often known as Jabirus. There were Pelicans on the waterholes as well as Black cormorants and various other herons and ducks. Water birds are always fascinating to watch.

Kapoc trees

Apart from the many Silver Box trees there were some new trees today including, what I think are ‘Whip-stick Wattles’ which a slim willowy tree that sway in the breeze. Then we came upon several Kapok Trees. I immediately think of kapok  mattresses. The trees have quite large yellow blooms as well a fruit which look  like Feijoa fruit. When these oval green fruit are cut they have a soft cotton like filling covering the seeds. The white 'fluff' is just like the old fashioned Kapoc filling. 

Fruit and flower from the Kapoc tree

We purchased fuel at the Doomadgee Roadhouse at $1.73 per litre. Further west we have camped at Walford Creek Camp. It is a small clean area and at present we are the only campers here. The flies are very nasty, in fact it is really the first time that flies have bothered us during the time we have been away.