Round Australia: Day 45

Day 45 Barn Hill

Yet another day in paradise. I feel really sorry for those back home in the wet – NOT. 34c plus, gentle

sunrise

Port Smith Lagoon

breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Maureen was up and about early as usual but did not rush off anywhere but sat and watched the birdlife around our site until I dragged myself out of bed. We put Margareton to boil (our kettle) and had tea and toast until we built up the energy to go to Port Smith Lagoon. This is a camp site that we were going to visit on the way up but people said it was too full of sand lies so we came here to Barn Hill.

Port Smith Lagoon

Port Smith Lagoon mangroves

On the way out of here we wanted to look at Barn hill itself. It is a small hill off to the side of the road. Maureen asked about walking to it, but was told by the lady that no one had been there for some time and it was overgrown and there were snakes etc up there, I am sure she was trying to ut us off. We looked at the sign saying walk trail but it led to an electric fence, so we took the hint. On top of the hill is a cairn that Lord John Forrest put up there when he came through here surveying

Port Smith Lagoon mangove

Port Smith Lagoon

way back when in the 1800’s. At one of the gates there were two Brahman Bulls sleeping right next to it and for some reason Maureen did not want to get out. I pointed out that when riding shotgun, it was her job to open gates, she pointed out that she was prepared to open the gate if the cows where not there and the shotgun rider handbook did not mention cows, so it was up to the pilot to sort out, folded her arms

Trude living on the edge

resident roo

and sat there! Being the kind and considerate person I am, I got out and walked tp the front of the car and in my best John Wayne voice said “git along little doggies or you might be steaks for tea” or something like that. They being the considerate beasts that they were and confronted by an obvious cow savvy person, got up and slowly walked to the back of the car by just one step only. I got back in the car, pointed at the gate and said ‘Shotgun rider does the gate” I came too not long after to see Maureen with the gate open waiting patiently for me to drive through.

bag limit

cows near the gate

Well the drive in to Port Smith Lagoon is 24kms from the main road on a not too bad track. It is a lot easier in an empty car to go over the rough roads but we could have taken the van in, it just would have been longer. The camp site looks great with lots of free bays that are drive throughs and lots of grass. There was even a local Kangaroo who looks to be a long term resident. We stopped at the shop and asked about the beach access and the guy pointed us in the right direction. The track ran down to a mangrove swamp

cows at the gate

Barn Hill with Cairn

that is not far from the camp and you could see where the sandflies would come from. The track ended at a launching site that you could use at high tide but the track disappeared into the mudflats and I believe led to the beach but I was not that keen to find out. Maureen walked bown to the beach and took some pictures. We drove back along another track that led along the edge of the swamp and there is a lovely track that runs straight

Me doing blog with supervisor over behind me

My supervisor

at the cliff edge and stops just inches from a 20 foot plus sheer drop! Would not want to do that at night. Eventually we returned to the camp site and toured through it. There were lots of spare bays that when the flies are not there would make it a lovely place to stay. There is also a bag limit of 2 Mud Crabs per person per day and they say it is easy to get.

sun on the rock

sunset

Back at Barn Hill we had a late lunch and then wandered out onto to grassed area as people said that the phone reception was better, we tried it and we actually got 4G reception so we loaded up yesterdays blog, we are going to do the same tonight. We went down again to watch the sun go down and had a good chat to our fellow campers and then returned for tea. Maureen went to the toilets to get some pictures of