Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Lorella Springs / Limmen national Park 24/8/2013



Talk about freezing, it was so cold during the night. I woke up shivering and rummaged around to find one of the blankets to wrap around myself, as I was trying to put it over me Iain kept on grabbing the corner to put on himself – needless to say I was not giving it up and made him find his own blanket! It’s ironic that we are in a nudist camp and we were wearing more clothes than any other day on the trip. It didn’t take long to warm up once the sun was up, so Iain went and lit the donkey so we could have a nice hot shower.

We decided that we would spend the morning just relaxing, and packing up slowly, and then making our way to the Lost City in the afternoon. After a leisurely breakfast and coffe, we went and had a nice hot shower, it of course turned into another photo shoot. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity of a rustic corrugated, almost outdoor shower. I took the decided with nice hot water I would wash my hair – probably shouldn’t have bothered as we found out it was just river water!

We packed up, and by the end of it were very hot so we drove up to the main area for a dip in the hot springs. Being a Sunday, the owner and all the workers were at the bar having a relaxing day and a drink. We got chatting and soon got talking about Unimogs. Iain got the laptop out and we spent a while showing them pictures and chatting about places we would love to visit. Rhett (the owner) was very keen for us to come back and try out some of the new tracks he is planning.

After a swim we headed out on the road to the Lost City, we got there earlier than planned and as it is very hot there with not much shade, we decided to do a few pics and then move on to Butterfly Springs. The Lost City was quite a bit different to what I remember it, we are here 2 months earlier, so it is still very green and not quite as dramatic. We walked into the rock formations, and as there had quite recently been a fire, we got filthy very quickly, so Iain being creative got some charcoal off the trees and put dirty stripes all over me, we did some photo’s and then headed back for the car. 





It was still early enough to move on and as there was no-one else there we liked our chances of getting a good spot at Butterfly Springs. We made the 40km journey, pulled in and to our horror it was jam packed with people. We did a u turn without even bothering to go any further and headed back onto the main road. It was getting late now, so we were keen to find someone to camp for the night. Just past the rangers office and the airstrip we spotted an old road so turned down it, to our delight it was a he gravel pit that had been long abandoned and was starting to self-regenerate. We parked up and set up for the night. 

We were just about to start cooking when Iain, looking back down the road spotted something, sure enough it was a Dingo. He was very interested in us which was a bit of a worry, Iain got his catapult and marbles out (we had bought them specially for such an eventuality) and tried a few practice shots, but he still stood there. Being a bit of a ninny, I started to worry a bit, he moved off into the bush but we could still see him. Iain decided to get the camera out and see if he could get a decent picture. He walked down the road and took a few shots, nnot thinking he had anything  - until we downloaded them – WOW, he was an amazing specimen. He made off and we never saw him again.

I must say I kept the torch very close that evening, every now and then doing a wide arc to make sure there were no eyes watching us!

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