North Queensland - 22 Aug 2021

The sunrise at 6:30am was magnificent

And it lit up the tableland beautifully

John was having trouble with his second battery so, thinking we may need extra time in town, we left Al & Dell to pack up while we headed to Clermont. There's a lovely lagoon just coming into town, Hoods Lagoon. Lots of birds enjoyed the water and a path and bridge led to the other side where we took in the memorials.

After getting fuel in town we came back towards the lagoon, and snapped a shot of the "Piano up a tree", a sculpture commemorating a past flood where, indeed, there was a piano left stranded up a tree. From all accounts it was left much higher up than this sculpture. 

Driving through Blair Athol State Forest we saw signs saying GPA which indicates a fossicking area, and in this case it is for gold.

Al checking out the GPA

We saw the first 4 brolgas of our trip, and found a shady tree to have some shade for lunch. On Eastmere Station we had just passed the homestead when we saw a gravestone to the right and stopped to check it out. It turned out to be the Bowly graves.

We arrived at Lake Dunn and drove around a little trying to find a good campsite. 

It was obvious that when the water is high it overflows out of the lake and, unfortunately, John drove on some of the waterlogged soil and got bogged. Al snigged him out backwards. 

Prior to starting this trip Darryl modified how the aluminum lid met the top of the trailer by gluing 5mm of foam to the trailer top. Unfortunately this decreased the friction between the two surfaces and the rough roads had bumped the lid off the camper, and broken several of the latches.

After setting up the rest of the day consisted of eating, with afternoon tea, followed by Happy Hour then dinner. 

It was very close to a full moon which rose spectacularly over the lake and there was quite a lot of wind during the night.