Are you ready to hear about the best ‘bush’ camping we have ever done to date? As you already know, upon leaving Adels Grove campground, we decided to head back towards Gregory Downs and spend the next five nights free camping in a nice secluded spot on the Gregory River, in a place we had previously located on our way through to Lawn Hill earlier in the week. Matt really doesn’t like caravan park/campground camping and after having a busy, nearly twelve months on the farm with lots of workers and family around, we were really hanging out for some quiet, relaxing family time. That is exactly what we got on the Gregory River!
Our camp site for the week, was about 20km’s out of Gregory Downs on the Camowheal Road (heading towards Camowheal) and we turned onto a track down towards the Gregory River at this sign;
We turned off the road at this sign on to a dirt track that headed towards the Gregory River
We weren’t in the best of moods on arrival here due to the ‘backing into a tree incident’ when packing up to leave Adel’s Grove earlier that morning! Things got even worse when we struggled to back the camper into the spot we had originally chosen due to some very loose sand.
Driving the track in to a campsite on the Gregory River
We did eventually find a nice spot that we could agree on (there was a bit of ‘pressure’ on this camp spot to be the perfect one as we were setting up for five nights and wanted it to be just right!) and after getting the camper into position we unhitched and had the camper roll forward – eeeek – narrowly missing the back of the car!! It seems the handbrake on the camper wasn’t put on properly! So we hitched the camper up to the car again and moved it back in to position – this time chocking the wheels and putting the handbrake on! Needless to say, it was getting fairly late in the day and we were all very hungry, tired and grumpy by this point!
But the effort was worth it! Check out our beautiful campsite right on the banks of the Gregory River!
We had the nicest few nights here! Lots of time to read, play games, swim, kayak and try out our camp oven cooking. The only downer was that as it was July, it was still very cold in the mornings and at night and the water in the river was freezing – which made bathing quite a chore! The kids were a bit disappointed not to be able to swim all day long too as it was just to cold to stay in for much longer than a few minutes at a time. I think September here would be the perfect time to camp. There was another group camped further down the river – about 1.5km’s or so from us, but we only saw them once and heard the music one night. That was it – not another person did we see for the whole five nights! Matt was in heaven!! Here’s a few photos of what our week entailed;
Trying to master the art of camp oven cooking!
The camp oven
Camp Oven damper – not bad!
I think our yeast was a bit old but we all ate it!
Matt & Kipp
Teaching him bad habits already!
Camp Oven steak & veges!
Dinner Time Fealy Family style!
Reading my book at night by the campfire
Kids spent hours making a little nature village complete with ‘sand mill’
Nature village house – pretty clever!
Firewood gathering – there was plenty of it around!
Kids loved playing Monopoly!
Camp Oven scones
Matt was very proud of these – they were delicious!
The Gregory River is a beautiful spring fed river and one of the few rivers way out there that flows all year round. It is perfect for canoeing and kayaking and plays host to quite a well known Canoe Race which draws hundreds of people to the area in May each year. There was quite a bit of algae about in the water but it quickly moved away when we started paddling about in the water. The kids had a great time kayaking on the river while we were there. The current flows quite fast so they were not able to paddle against it upstream, but Matt tied a rope to their kayaks and would pull them back up again – a little tedious but they enjoyed it! We also figured out that we could tie the kayaks to a rope which was already stretched across the river (presumably left over from the canoe race) and then kids could sit and lie on them and play about in the water without floating away – brilliant!
We had some excitement one day when I jumped aboard the kids kayak with maybe a little bit of screaming after nearly standing on this little critter in the water!
A callout to identify him on our Facebook Page today has confirmed that he is a Blue Claw Yabby! The boys were very proud of themselves managing to capture him in one of our storage boxes – I think he may have been a little sick and slow, already having lost a claw somehow – but they believed they were superior hunter/gatherers so we left it at that!
Blue Claw Yabby
Matt wanted to cook and eat him but I wouldn’t let him having always been taught never to eat something unless you are sure it isn’t poisonous! I’m getting some ‘I told you so’s’ now! Oh well – next time!
We loved, loved camping on the Gregory River and would definitely like to go back again when it is a little warmer, kids are a little older and have a go at a day long canoe trip or something like that! Beautiful spot! We managed fine with a bush toilet and a quick dip at night in the river as our bath. Have you got a favourite bush camping spot? Let us know where so we can add it to our list!
What an amazing spot! You can’t get much better than a roast when camping either.
Aaron at 4WDing Australia recently posted…Corrugations in Esperance
We haven’t tried a roast in the camp oven yet Aaron – definitely on the list for the next camp! It was a top spot! Have you been there? Thanks for stopping in 🙂
That looks awesome we need to upgrade our camping situation so we can start camping a bit more.
The Exercise Hitlist recently posted…Asking The Stupid Questions – Interview with Adventurethon Creator Joel Savage
What a wonderful camp spot! As much as I love camping by a beach, I must say camping by a river is a close second. The Murray and the Murrumbidgee have been my favourites – those they are too fast flowing in parts to swim. Adrian takes his stand up paddle board out and tries to go up stream. It’s great exercise.
Heike I’ve been missing you, although I must say you have a very good excuse! Thanks for stopping by – I’m back on a bit of a blogging roll at the moment – heheheh! We are split in our house over the best camping – I love the beach but Matt loves the freshwater so we have to take it in turns! Will get to the Murray and the Murrumbidgee Rivers one day – they’re on the list!
You guys write such a great blog.
I was thinking of you this morning when I bought my 4 mangos for $1.75 each.
Yesterday The best price was 2 for $3.
I now have a mango cutter for a very elegant cut even tough a knife is just as good.
Cheers,
Des
Des you’re too kind! You’re write a pretty mean blog yourself! Keep an eye out for the Blue Sky Mangoes to start appearing down your way just before Christmas!
Hey there, I found you via the NaBloPoMo blogroll.
As part of NaBloPoMo I try to comment on as many participating blogs as I can, and I am also adding participating blogs to my feed reader. So I’m just dropping by to let you know I’ve added your blog to my feedreader, whenever you publish a post I will see it. 🙂
I have created three bundles on Inoreader so that bloggers can easily visit other participating NaBloPoMo bloggers which you can find here –
http://www.snoskred.org/2014/11/nablopomo-bundles-final-edition.html
I also have a link up going at my place so my readers can find participating blogs which you are more than welcome to add your blog link to.
Looking forward to seeing your posts. You may see me drop by again during November, but it might be December before I finish my first drop by to blogs if I don’t get faster at leaving comments. 🙂
Happy NaBloPoMo to you!
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org
Favourite camp site … Let me try to keep the list short!!! (Sorry for my vague locations, my trip log is packed away at the moment.. Sigh …)
Burdekin River, a couple of hours northish of a volcano in a national park, QLD *
Staaten River, QLD *
Somerset Beach on Cape York, QLD *
Six Mile Creek between Candelo & Bombala, NSW *
Araganu Beach, Mimosa Rocks National Park, NSW
Big Crystal Creek, in a National Park on the way to Petaluma, QLD
20 Mile Waterhole, north of Charleville, QLD *
Wilga National Park – Horses & Coaches campground, east of Wilcannia on the Darling river – totally fabulous place!
All with water of various kinds. Still, Gregory River was the only place i went ‘swimming’ every day!!
Ah! Forgot to add, * means free camp
Great spot and wonderful photos from July.
We camped in that spot last May and the one before, for the Canoe Race. My husband caught a great barra from a canoe in the water hole just north of the camping area. Right now all that river bank is underwater and being cleaned out for us next May. The water was 1.9 under the bridge at Gregory Downs last week. Could be higher now!
Jo – we saw all the signs about the canoe race – it looks like great fun! We loved the Gregory River – would definitely go back again!!
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