I would love to check out Lawn Hill and surrounds but would be keen to hear about access. I have a Toyota Hiace Campervan and would come down from Karumba. Does one need a four wheel drive? Is the road sealed all or most of the way?
wendyv said
08:25 PM Jun 30, 2017
From Karumba, you could come down through Normanton, south to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse, on the Cloncurry road. At B&W, turn west and go to Gregory Downs. All sealed roads to this point.
From Gregory Down to Adels Grove camping ground is about 90kms. About 45kms of that was surfaced for Century Mine access. The next 45kms is firm dirt/gravel. Depending on when the graders were last over it, there may be some rough spots and corrugations, but if you are prepared to take your time, should be no problems. Will be a few places where there are shallow "dips" - in the wet season would be water in these but then they are smoothed out by the graders after the wet. The main thing is not to enter these too fast. Heavily loaded 4WD'ers, who think they are bulletproof, often drive these roads too fast, the tread on their tyres gets spread by their weight when they bottom in the dips, then a sharp stone will get driven into the tyre. They will then complain about the state of the roads.
There is nowhere that you would need extra high clearance, and certainly not 4WD.
From Adels Grove to the National Park is 10kms. Unsealed. Roadworks were done on that a couple of months ago and I believe it is better than it has ever been. This section used to be the roughest because of the increased trafic to and fro from Adels Grove to the National Park.
I worked some tourist seasons at Adels Grove, and we would get conventional cars come up from Mt Isa - via B&W - for long weekends and the like. Many of the seasonal staff just had conventional caravans.
Possum3 said
11:40 AM Jul 1, 2017
If you are coming from Camooweal/ Mt Isa DO NOT take "Short cut" via Thortonia Yelvertoft Rd in High Ace van - that is for serious heavy-duty 4WD vehicles and tyres - Have done it several times on Safari/Rally heavily rutted tyre destroyer - Go the extra distance bitumen Rd as per Wendyv advises. That being said there is a nice little free-camp at the corner of Barkly Hgw and Thortonia Yelvertoft Rds (about 20/30 k's out of Mt Isa from memory) no facilities other than BBQ pits but a very pretty place to overnight.
I would love to check out Lawn Hill and surrounds but would be keen to hear about access. I have a Toyota Hiace Campervan and would come down from Karumba. Does one need a four wheel drive? Is the road sealed all or most of the way?
From Gregory Down to Adels Grove camping ground is about 90kms. About 45kms of that was surfaced for Century Mine access. The next 45kms is firm dirt/gravel. Depending on when the graders were last over it, there may be some rough spots and corrugations, but if you are prepared to take your time, should be no problems. Will be a few places where there are shallow "dips" - in the wet season would be water in these but then they are smoothed out by the graders after the wet. The main thing is not to enter these too fast. Heavily loaded 4WD'ers, who think they are bulletproof, often drive these roads too fast, the tread on their tyres gets spread by their weight when they bottom in the dips, then a sharp stone will get driven into the tyre. They will then complain about the state of the roads.
There is nowhere that you would need extra high clearance, and certainly not 4WD.
From Adels Grove to the National Park is 10kms. Unsealed. Roadworks were done on that a couple of months ago and I believe it is better than it has ever been. This section used to be the roughest because of the increased trafic to and fro from Adels Grove to the National Park.
I worked some tourist seasons at Adels Grove, and we would get conventional cars come up from Mt Isa - via B&W - for long weekends and the like. Many of the seasonal staff just had conventional caravans.