Mont Albion Station

Off to a remote corner of the Tablelands for a few days at Mont Albion Station which has 400 head of cattle and several paperbark-lined dams on Gibb Creek.

Because we are 5.7 tons, the track to our camp requires us to chicken run around the rickety, wooden, 4ton-limit bridge.

We spend our first two nights in a large, grassy clearing below the dam. Firewood is plentiful, so we enjoy happy hour with our glass of wine, woodsmoke aromas, and the cockatoos noisily deciding where to roost.

The moonlit, starstruck night is veiled with wispy, translucent clouds.


In the early morning, a massive boomer roo cautiously sniffs the heavy dew beside us. The Bush stirs: mobs of magpies warbling, fluting, carolling in the cool air, curious flocks of redwinged parrots peering down from trees, distant sounds of waking children, campers woodchopping, and kayaks launched.

By 9am, squadrons of dragonflies patrol the light breeze over the paddock. The technology scan reports a pleasingly early intake of 500 watts solar, nature powering us up for the day.

May 1st, Labour Day completed, our fellow campers leave to return home. At noon, we pounce on the best waterside campspot overlooking Gibb Dam. What a view! Rainbow bee-eaters splash in pursuit of prey, then thwack it on branches. Spangled perch chase small fry which skips across the surface to escape.

As the sun sets behind the paperbarks, we pour a glass of wine, pull up chairs around the fire and wait for moonrise.

Morning on the dam is a delight of sunlit stillness punctuated by mobs of magpies duetting to each other from shore to shore. We are on our own after the long weekend, cocooned in nature.

A black swan appears mysteriously from my right, neck elegantly arched, taking sips of water as it glides away. Ducks gabble as they dabble their way round the dam. A dollarbird hunts from the highest branch of a dead tree in the middle of the waters. Whistling kites glide above, effortlessly whirling on the day's first thermal currents.

Following the old track of the long-since dismantled tramway, we pause at the pioneer cemetery of the once thriving mining community of Stannary Hills. Here lie the miners, their infants, their wives and kin, all with now overgrown crosses, faded headstones, and rusting fences. 

=========================================================================

Mont Albion, Mt Albion, Mount Albion, MtAlbion, FNQ, Stannary Hills, Pioneer Cemetery, Far North Queensland