Tuesday 16th August – Day 24
We packed up without any issues and headed directly east from Musgrave. The road was pretty good and we had read about Nifold Plains which was supposed to have quite a unique layout of termite mounds.

From there we headed back down the road towards Lakefield. On the way we passed a Red Lily lagoon, and then White Lily lagoon. We stopped at both to look at the flora. Again, lots of magpie geese, herons and cormorants. At red Lily lagoon there was a boardwalk out to the middle of the reeds and water.
Continuing on we came to the Hann crossing. There was a bunch (20 or so) workers there repairing the crossing. They were actually laying new concrete, so they had used sandbags to redirect some of the water. This meant that we had to wait until they had finished doing what they were doing before we could be let through.

Not far down the road we came across Breeza Homestead, which consists of a couple of old buildings built by the German family of Sinclair Balser, over 100 years ago. There was also a corridor of 100 year old Mango trees, which were huge! We had stopped there because there was another waterhole with lots of flora and birds.

On the road again we came to some major road works but this time the road was basically in a sand only area so it was very soft and hard going in some spots. There seemed to be no soil anywhere. We made it through obviously, and finally arrived at Kalpowar campsite.

We were going to look at this and then maybe go and look at 12 Mile camp, but this one was really nice, with plenty of sites, water, toilets, and even had showers (cold) and it was on a river with fishing.

We set up camp and had a look at the river.

We had seen a lot of Barramundi carcasses lying around so we were hopeful of something better.

The best thing about the afternoon was that we came upon a crocodile, basking on a rock. He was only a Johnson’s but it was the first one we had laid eyes on apart from the eyes we saw on the Jardine.

I took a few photos and he didn’t move until I got a bit close and he opened his mouth a bit to show his teeth.

The rest of the day was relaxing, as Mark and I flicked a few more lures from the causeway and caught nothing again. We heard later that the water was a lot colder than normal and the barra were catching ‘white spot’ and it had caused them to die. That is probably why we had seen a lot of dead ones in the water, and also why they don’t seem to be eating.

Wednesday 17th August – Day 25
Today was even more relaxing than yesterday. We had decided to stay an extra day and just unwind.

While Mark and I were walking in the bushes on the side of the river, we heard the rustle as a snake slithered away. We saw it was darkish and only about 1m long. I flicked it with the rod tip to make it scurry faster. It was then that I realised it was a Taipan -Australia’s deadliest snake. We had seen a couple of these on the roads as we were driving along.

A bunch more people arrived in camp today and all the sites were occupied. There was one group of 8 adults and 10 kids! Good thing they were not next to us.