Judy & Brian Tour Oz: Lotus Bird Lodge, Cape York Qld Sunday 7 Aug 2022 (2nights)

Lotus Bird Lodge, Cape York Qld Sunday 7 Aug 2022 (2 nights)

Sunday

Another early start and this time we turned right out of town and headed north. A new road and a new adventure for us.

Out onto the dirt roads and after some time we stopped at the Old Laura Homestead, the first cattle run on Cape York, established to supply the gold fields on the Palmer River and Laura township with fresh meat. The run changed hands many years ago and the new owners built themselves a new homestead and abandoned this one. It has since been fixed-up a bit and stabilised and it is now a major tourist attraction in the parts.

Old Laura Homestead, Qld

Outbuilding. Old Laura Homestead Qld

From the old homestead we travelled further north to Laura the town proper, established in 1880 or so when the gold fever struck the area. About all that is left is the Laura Cultural and Information centre, which is quite good, has a very informative history of the district and some good artwork. It is owned and operated by the Aboriginal Land Council and the current manager also doubles as the tour guide for our trip to the Quinkan Galleries, a group of rock formations some way out of town, featuring Aboriginal rock paintings. Outback Spirit have their own ex-army based Land Rovers come safari trucks, in which we are taken out of town and way out onto one of the pastoral leases.

Quinkan Gallery, Laura Qld

The gallery we have been taken to is Mushroom Rock and Gene,

Gene. Quinkan Gallery Guide Laura Qld

our guide is very informative and entertaining in his description of the artwork and the stories that they tell. The thing is that nobody really knows the story of a painting in a cave a hundred years old, let alone one potentially 30-40 thousand years old. We gathered the impression that Gene wasn’t fully initiated and as such wasn’t privy to the full stories, and even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to tell us as we are at the bottom of the need-to-know ladder. Some of the figures are really well depicted and preserved including one or two Quinkan, their spirit being. We also picked up that if a figure was depicted upside down, it meant that they were deceased, and on the solid pictures of an animal, such as a wallaby, a waist line / belt meant that it was the artist’s totem.

Quinkan Gallery Guide Laura Qld

Before we left we had lunch on the verandah, this one a salad and cold meat affair provided by our tour guides.

And then back into the coach for a two-hour drive to a rest stop at the Kalpower Crossing on the Normanby River, a similar sort of arrangement as the Cahills Crossing as you cross from Kakadu into Arnhem Land where there are a heap of crocodiles, fish and always, always a daredevil fisherman. There are also some exposed fossils to be seen in and on the rocks in the dry parts of the riverbed. They look like large trilobites and in both of the ones we saw there is a good amount of opalisation evident.

Kalpower Crossing, Normnby River Qld

Back on the road again and another lengthy trip brought us finally to ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ of Cape York, the Lotus Bird Lodge. Established some 20 odd years ago by an American family as the ultimate bird-o-files getaway, it never really got established and was abandoned after a few seasons. The current owners bought it after 3 years of being closed and spend six months getting it going again. It is built on the edge of a Lagoon, actually a Billabong, but that’s OK, they were American, which is a waterlily covered sheet of water and a magnet for birdlife, both local and migratory. Naturally, we are constantly warned of the presence of crocodiles that live in it and aren’t averse to leaping out at bird-gazers. We were also warned about the many snakes that slither about the place, which include the obligatory three most venomous in the world and a couple of almost harmless ones. Take a torch at night, keep you eyes open, stay 10 metres from the water and tread carefully, is the mantra. Oh and keep a lookout for the wild pigs and of course the wild bulls, which will charge at you. Apparently they are all hanging around and getting feisty because there is a nice lady cow wandering around.

There is a central eating and meeting building, open on all sides except the kitchen, and ten timber cabins spread around the edge of the billabong. All the timbers were apparently cut from trees found on the property. It has a real authentic, casual but quality feel about it.

The owner is a bit of a character who after 20 years running the place is ready to sell and retire. The Outback Spirit people have made an offer which he has accepted, but I heard on the side that they haven’t actually sent or signed a contract yet. It would fit perfectly into the Outback Spirt portfolio, but as that company has been bought out by someone else, its anyones guess what will happen.

Our cabin is comfortable and open at the top on both ends. Screen doors and windows all around. Everything is open and with the ceiling fan running, no need for air conditioners.

The only drawback is that you can't have a light on after dark, not even a computer screen, because despite the fly screens, the place is will be full off little black flying things in an instant.

Monday

We were granted a sleep-in this morning, breakfast wasn’t ‘till 7:30 and no bags to pack and put out!

Mind you the noise from the birds in the billabong was enough to wake the dead as they started their cacophony with the sun rising blood-red behind them.

First activity after breakfast was a guided tour around the billabong, not that you need a guide as they have provided an info card and map. Items of interest are tagged but the central attraction is the water with its snow-drop lotus flowers and heaps of birds. Now I’m no ‘birdie but even I saw egrets, magpie geese, jacana and maybe a jabiru or two. My mission is to get a decent photo of a bird or birds taking off, where they leave the line of splashes on the water-surface with their wing-tips as they climb into the sky.

Today is however a big day for both of us: our first helicopter flight! A forty five minute scenic tour of the national park and the lake lands.

Due to weight distribution requirements, we were all weighed individually and then split into groups of three. Judy went first, on the 12 o’clock flight, and while not terrified, was happy to be back on terra ferma. Did I mention that this helicopter has no doors, and it feels as if you sit almost outside the cabin. I went on the 2pm flight and to say I was a little underwhelmed would sum it up really. I can't say what I was expecting but it just wasn’t the ‘buzz’ I had in mind. We flew around and around and checked out a few billabongs for crocodile, of which I saw and snapped two. We snapped campers on the crocodile infested river banks and we snapped rivers, both wet and dry, and dirt roads and trees and cattle. Our turnaround point was the entrance to the Hunter River at Princess Charlotte Bay, where the snake-like or should I say dreamtime serpent shape of the rivers made for great viewing.

What’s that? Its ice-cream o’clock apparently....