Day 44 - Musgrave Roadhouse to Lakeland

Well today was a little less planned than the rest.  After a fairly dewy start to the morning, we packed up.  Chris was chatting to the camp own champion whilst Katie and Dad packed up Ernie.  We think that he is trying to wean us of him helping out, only 3 more sleeps till he flys out!

 Our camp at Musgrave station

And off into the wide blue yonder we headed, only 138 kms left of dirt.  Laura was the initial destination for the day.  The road was looking good going pretty smoothly but it had a few bites in the last 20 kms or so just to make sure that we remembered what corrugations were like.  Dad was thinking that it would be a baptism of fire for those going north from Laura!

We arrived at Laura around lunch time.  Laura is a small town, with a general store, caravan park and petrol station.  The main reason for us going there was to see the split rock aboriginal art works.  The cultural centre is just out of town.  Interestingly it had an entry fee, the first one so far.  Our timing to visit wasn't great as a tour of the art works had just finished.  The next tour wasn't until Tuesday or Wednesday so we weren't planning to hang around, we would have to do a self guided tour.  To fill in some knowledge gaps we popped into the cultural centre, the wealth of information and displays was amazing.  We spent the next hour or so soaking in the information from art discriptions, history of the region, stories of oast and present activities in the area.  A great source of information of the aboriginal tribes in the district.

 A copy of the car that first made it to Cape York, a Austin 7 (nicknamed the Baby) in the 1930's

We popped back into the Laura town for lunch before deciding to continuing down the road to check out the artworks.

 Split rock

The art works range in age from 2000 - 13000 years old.

Trying to find some free camping we were out of luck with no viable spots.  We did get an oppurtunity for some pictures whilst putting a jerry can of fuel into Charlie.

 Looking west on the road down to Lakeland

On the road again!