NEWS FEATURE FRONTIER
Rhett’s French partner, Marie Ades, gave us a map and told us $20 a night would buy a campsite and unrestricted access to Lorella’s swimming holes, gorges, waterfalls, bush walks, remote camps and roughly 1000km of 4WD tracks. If we were gone more than 24 hours after we were due back, people would come searching.
Outside the homestead and campground is absolute wilderness; Snapping Handbag Billabong, Wildfire Gorge, Waterslide, Dingo Ridge and Helicopter Pools just a few of the wondrous places. The Secret Fishing Spot on the Gulf of Carpentaria is about 89km away.
The station stocks emer- gency unleaded and diesel, but travellers should plan to be self-sufficient with fuel; safe spring water flows from the campground taps.
During the busy Dry campers enjoy a bar and grill, laundry service and scenic helicopter flights over inaccessible parts of the station and Limmen’s Southern Lost City.
Determined to make our own fun, we set up on the sprawling campsite — shared only with a caravan, two campervans and the caretaker who was settling in for the Wet — 200m from Lorella’s famous croc-free hot springs.
Rosie Rapids on the bank of the Rosie River, which winds through Lorella, was our first stop; cattle and wild horses scattered as we lurched down the track through the bulldust.
After a swim it was back to camp for camp-oven roast beef and sweet potato cooked in the coals as we listened to Home on the Range sitting under the stars entertaining an overtired baby who refused to sleep.
The next morning we hit the Tawallah Track. About 40km of ruts, rocks and bulldust, then a sweaty 1.5km hike — with Trav wearing an uncomplaining Alby in the Baby Bjorn — took us to a swimming hole known as Nanny’s Retreat.
After exploring Le Spa and Fern Gully, we were en route to our camp when a bad egg smell crept into the car through the aircon.
Later that night the awning light and fridge, which were powered off a second battery, weren’t working; I teased Trav when he insisted on finding the source of the fault, saying it was probably nothing to worry about.
I would have been right, if a flat battery on a remote cattle station is “nothing”.
Our departure for Heartbreak Hotel the next morning didn’t happen smoothly ... or at all for a couple of hours because the car refused to start.
Upon inspection in broad daylight the failed second battery appeared not only to have cracked but drained the power from the main battery to keep our fridge running.
We should have discon- nected it the previous night, but a mistake is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it ... and if there’s not a vehicle nearby to give you a jump.
Thankfully, Indiana turned up. He and his dad had just returned from exploring Valley of the Springs in the Tawallah Range, wanting to find out how far cattle were roaming.
“We found some beautiful waterfalls I didn’t know about before — well, they will be beautiful when the rain comes,” Walker said.
“We are always pushing in new tracks and discovering new places on the station — we’ve opened so many new spots for this Dry.”
This incredible place reopens on April 1, 2017. You will be in an area that is known to have risks from crocodiles, sharks, stingers, snakes, spiders, scorpions, insects, bulls, buffaloes, wild animals, cyclones, drowning from too much water, dying from lack of water, falling rocks, falling from rocks, falling from vehicles and many, many other dangers too numerous to mention. Visit lorellasprings.com.au