13 July - Lawn Hill Gorge campground.

Awake to the sounds of birds calling, cooing and twittering. There is a gentle hum of the generator that powers toilet block. Very little movement around camp. 

I have a sick feeling I've left my handbag in Mt Isa, have had no need of it yesterday, so will check the car properly in daylight and then chase that up. No funds out of my bank that I can see. So not the end of the world, but a bloody nuisance. 

Given we have two more nights here we have some time to just relax. Off for a walk to the creek now 7.06am and sun is soon to make an appearance. 

Out for a pre breaky amble and up comes the sun and on turns the colour. 

The moon was up too.

Start of walk was along the creek amongst the trees and palms, a lot of rocks too. Trees are strewn all over the ground, from previous floods through the area, it is quite spooky to walk through. The creek and palms etc are totally the opposite.

The Creek.

Palms and water lillies.

Through to the other side of creek and out of the wide creek bed, is the Gorge walls soaring to reach the sky above. 

A small section of white water flowing over a lot of flood debris.

The sun has popped over the horizon, to light the tops of the Gorge and trees.

It was just awe inspiring, kept taking photos and photos.

A beautiful walk out to lower gorge. Saw the Little Red Flying Fox colony - thousands of them hanging and flying and flapping in a variety of trees. 

Trees full of Little Red Flying foxes, we saw thousands of bats fly overhead at dusk last night, turns out this was them.

The trees were all laden with them.

Very cute up close too.

Tried to capture some in flight.

Some mean looking seed pod, on the return to camp.

This is the spooky creek bed I mentioned above.

 Rang the info centre - sure enough they have my bag. They had tried to Facebook message me, but I think I deleted it cos I didn't recognise the name. I asked if there was anyway they could get it to Adel grove? Pieta rang me back to say Phil from Adels happens to be going to Mt Isa today and back tomorrow - he is staying with Michelle's (Adels owner) sister - who is picking up my bag from the Info centre for Phil to bring back tomorrow - when we can go and collect it. Very lucky to have a set of circumstances falling in my favour. 

Back for breaky - pancakes. 

Cooking pancakes in the sun was hot work so we broke out the awning on the car, works well. 

Camp with addition of the awning we gave Dad last year.

After breaky I decided to do another walk before it got too hot. So off to the Cascades and the Island Stack Lookout and Circuit. Some great views. Fantastic view over the local Waanyi people's Wild Dog Dreaming site. Due its cultural importance - no pics allowed. 

The views up the Gorge are stunning and the Island Stack is surrounded by the water and Gorges. 

I think this rock is called Tufa, is looks like prehistoric coral to me.

 The Cascades didn't have much water flowing over them so not a lot to see but once again views of the palms and emerald coloured water. Also some interesting rock formations. So far my Garmin says I've done over 9kms. 

This little formation was 'growing' on the bottom of the creek at the Cascades.

The Cascades

...not Cascading.

But still some fantastic sights to see.

View from the Island Stack Lookout up the Gorge, with people canoeing (we plan to do that tomorrow)

Me from one of the views on the Island Stack Circuit (turns out I was walking along the bottom of this island this morning) 

Twas getting hot.

I took adequate caution.

Looking back over the campgroud

and more walls of rock.

That's Steve's 'fat arsed van' on the bottom left, and our set up in the middle of the shot.

Another of the Gorge with canoeists. 

And here comes the small, solar powered, electric cruise boat. It holds 10.

Some tree.

Gorge with Tree shot

Palms growing in the Gorge below. 

The circuit was marked with metal 'pointers' on the rock.

The path, with a cool old rock, ripples of sand once upon a time maybe?

There had been a fire, not sure if it was a deliberate burn or not. 

Time to head back for lunch

 Hot dogs for lunch, then  after some more sitting around, pumping up tyre tubes we eventually went for a swim. It was pretty hot in the middle of the day, so while the water was refreshing it wasn't super cold. Very nice to float around in that's for sure. Michael got the drone up after a couple of failed take offs - something about the 'auto-level.'

The Following 20 pics are taken with the little waterproof lumix, not fabulous, but captures and fun of the afternoon.

J protecting that hat.(safely on the log to his left)

The Dundek's 

Michael and Sarah

Selfie grimace.

Dundek's and a Mintern too.

Steve, lolling about.

Michael

Steve, didn't have control of his tube.

Nice smile Sarah.

Not sure if anyone has control in this situation.

and the tube race is on.

Got it all under control Stef, looks like you need a ginger beer in that right hand.

Steve, Carmel and Dad playing it safe near the edge and steps.

By jove, I think you've got it J. 

Yep.

Group selfie

and there goes the Cruise Boat.

Then home to our party area at Steve's van and awning for nibbles and drinks. 

About 5ish I thought it might be nice to do another walk to the Wild Dog Dreaming site - I thought it was closer than it was, but those who went (all bar Steve and Michael) made it to see the rock art, carving and middens of the Waanyi people.  Sarah went a bit further to the lower gorge. 

Then back to sit around for a while before dinner prep and return to party van to eat. 

I'm now up to 14kms today so should sleep pretty well, especially as last night was fitful worrying about my bag.