Gulf country Qld

[Russ]

Adells grove ( lawn hill )

 

Gorge

 

Sweers Island ( 20nm off coast, Normanton )

 

Strip

 

Enroute coastal run to karumba.

 

Atherton overnight Burke & Wills roadhouse, then 2 nights Adells Grove, topup fuel at Burketown, the dash over to Sweers Is, spend 3 days, dash back to mainland, then coastal to Karumba, overfly to Normanton, punctured a tyre...bugger, refuel, then direct to Atherton.

 

Great run......me 160 just purred.

 

More to come.....standby

 

 

[SDQDI]

I love the low level pic through the gorge Russ:wink: That would have taken some concentration:freaked:.

 

But seriously some good pics, I love that end of Aus:thumb up:

 

 

[Russ]

I love the low level pic through the gorge Russ:wink: That would have taken some concentration:freaked:.But seriously some good pics, I love that end of Aus:thumb up:

It's a jab mate........nuthin stops em...

 

 

[Guy s]

Look forward to more in a awesome part of the country Russ. Have always wanted to do a trip up north.

 

 

[Russ]

brilliant solar hot water system, you add those blue heater tubes as required to achieve tank temp. Tubes do not have water in them,only the tank, tubes have electro conductor elements.....nothing corrodes, its only metres from the oceon.

 

 

 

Strip at rear Burke and Wills R/H

 

Road out front even better, single powerline across road out front.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JEM]

Great pics Russ. Thanks for sharing.

 

 

[Russ]

Last couple of pics, the run down the gulf coast was miles and miles like this....magnificent scenery.

 

Organising a run NT...WA shortly

 

 

 

[crashley]

Great pics. We are currently at karumba after two nights at adels grove. Haven't got time to visit sweers island as we have to start heading back down to Victoria

 

 

[Russ]

Avgas Mareeba and Atherton.....$2.02L ( mareeba swipe card... VISA etc )

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

[ATTACH]35139[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]35140[/ATTACH] Last couple of pics, the run down the gulf coast was miles and miles like this....magnificent scenery.Organising a run NT...WA shortly

The patterns on the northern Australia mudflats are wondrous.

 

I'd flown over them for years before the special-ness of them was brought to my attention.

 

During a heli safari in the Kimberley a lady client got all excited as we came back over Wyndham after five days further north. It turned out she was a dress designer from New York and a few weeks later she booked me solid for a fortnight and flew back to Australia. I had to spend hours on end at 5-10,000ft with her harnessed and hanging out the open door taking vertical photos with a large format camera. Instead of two weeks she ended up staying about eight or ten weeks to get enough haze-free days and days without spring tides to allow the flats to dry enough to provide the wide range of colours shown in your pictures.

 

She used the images to create unique fabric prints for her fashion label and did quite well with them.

 

 

[Bennyboy320]

Thanks for sharing those outstanding photo's, can't wait to get some navs up there myself, counting down the years:happy dance: until I become a grey nomad & can spend more time flying around this great land.

 

Would be great to keep this post going with more people adding their photo's.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Would be great to keep this post going with more people adding their photo's.

A few pics of the Gulf country and beyond from a trip I did Brisbane to Darwin and return in 1989, sorry for the poor quality, the images are scanned from old and very heat-affected prints -

 

Upper reaches of Lawn Hill Gorge

 

 

Lunch and refuel at Hell's Gate on the Qld/NT border NW of Burketown and Doomadgee

 

 

Hell's Gate - so called because of the horrific state of the road for decades

 

 

Lawn Hill Station airstrip, i worked there for a few weeks teaching the head stockman to fly

 

 

Upper reaches of Edith Falls on the escarpment at Lawn Hill. Used to fly the Drifter out to places like that, plonk it down short and then kick rocks and cut scrub out of the way to be able to take off again. Usually with fish or something tasty slung underneath.

 

 

Lawn Hill Station shed and yards at the Homestead

 

 

Lawn Hill Homestead, it was owned by Sebastiano de Meyer back then, a Brazilian/Argentinian cattle baron.

 

 

More of the Homestead, in its heyday it housed more than 60 stockmen, fencers, boremen, mechanics, farriers, saddlers, cooks and the station carried over 60,000 head. By 1989 it had one plane, one helicopter, two pilots, four stockmen, one boreman, one cook, one drunk no-hoper that used to be a saddler, used contract fencers and still carried 30,000 head of cattle.

 

 

Lunch stop on the road north of Hell's Gate on Robinson River Station.

 

 

Refuelling at Tindal Airforce Base near Katherine NT.

 

 

 

[Russ]

How we've not bumped into each other way back then surprises me, was all over same areas, same yrs etc.

 

Info......hells gate is near on folded, am told it's poor management driving folks away ( attitude etc ) ......stupid.

 

Another real interesting place, not far away is "lost city", rock formations amazing.....pics coming.

 

As to " plonking me jab down" etc etc.....forget about that. ( pity )

 

There are times one begs for tundra tyres, and 20m liftoffs.....dream on.

 

 

[Russ]

 

1st 2 are enroute pics, 3rd pic is the entrance to a cave on sweers island where chap "Landsborough " carved dates, names ( he and wife ) back 1866, when they lived on the island back then. ( Landsborough Hwy named after him )