Adel's Grove and Lawn Hill National Park

The Grove here is a beautiful stand of all sorts of trees forming a shaded, leafy canopy full of singing birds. Underneath the trees, a bunch of campervans and trailers park up next to their own fire rings on the forest floor. 

In the 1930s a French Botanist, Albert de Lestang, planted thousands of trees from around the world and turned the place into a special garden. Sadly, when he was in his 70s, a nearby mine started a fire that spread to his property and destroyed his buildings, notes, seeds, and trees. He went into depression and finished his days in a carehome at Charters Towers. The present property is named after his initials.

We light the campfire and rustle up lamb chops in the evening, followed by a bacon and egg brekkie washed down with plunger coffee. A pair of white-browed robins picks specks off our campfire grill. The place is cool, no mozzies, and has a feel of enchantment nurtured by the swirling waters flowing in and around the Grove as they rush down from Lawn Hill gorge, 12kms further down the corrugated road in Lawn Hill National Park. 

We drive to the Park and do the loop walk, first to the lovely falls cascading across the gorge, then to the lookout higher up on a ridge overlooking the Park. The gorge waters are wide and turquoise. Archerfish patrol the banks, lots of birds accompany us on land in the thick tree cover. 

A local zinc mine and outback cattle stations provide a steady flow of giant road trains which rule the road: