Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park

Boodjamulla is fed by springs that keep Lawn Hill Creek running clear and green all year through country that is otherwise stone and spinifex, cutting a gorge with red sandstone walls up to sixty metres high and lined with cabbage palms and pandanus. Canoes hired at the campground are the standard way to see it, paddling up through the Middle and Upper gorges past Indarri Falls. The Waanyi people are the traditional owners and co-manage the park. Adjoining it, the Riversleigh fossil site is part of the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage listing, preserving twenty-five million years of mammal evolution in limestone, with a public interpretive area.

History

The Waanyi have lived around the gorge for at least 17,000 years and know it as Boodjamulla, Rainbow Serpent country, leaving middens, camp sites, grinding stones and rock art. Cattle leases granted from the 1870s formed Lawn Hill Station, once one of Queensland's largest, and in 1984 its owner Sebastião Ferreira Maia gave 122 square kilometres to the state for public benefit, a further 1,350 square kilometres following in 1992 together with the Riversleigh and Musselbrook sections; the Waanyi were granted native title in 2010 (Wikipedia, Boodjamulla National Park).

What's there

• The green gorge - spring-fed water between red sandstone walls.
• The canoe route - paddling up through Middle and Upper gorges to Indarri Falls.
• The Riversleigh fossils - the World Heritage mammal fossil site nearby.
• The palm oasis - cabbage palms and pandanus in stone country.

When to go

April to September; summer is extremely hot and the wet season cuts the roads, sometimes for months. Canoe hire operates from the campground during the open season. Camping must be booked in advance and fills in the winter peak.

Practical notes

Access is several hours on unsealed roads from Mount Isa, and the last stretches are rough. Freshwater crocodiles live in the gorge; they are not dangerous to people in normal circumstances but are present. There is no fuel or shop in the park, and phone coverage is absent.

Nearby

Riversleigh's fossil site is within the park area; Mount Isa lies southeast.

Key facts