Kununurra

Not as long between blogs this time. We are staying in Kununurra until Wednesday 8th June. Because there has been so much rain up here this season the rivers on the Gibb River Road have been a bit full so we are sitting it out here in Kununurra until they go down a bit. The Pentecost River, which we will cross first, is now down to 450mm so we are ready to go. We have booked a sunset cruise on the Ord River on Monday, we will do our big shop on Tuesday, get the drinks in on Tuesday night and leave on Wednesday.
You are probably wondering why I said "get the drinks in on Tuesday night". Well, Kununurra has some very strict alcohol rules. You can buy only low strength beer (below 2.7%) in any quantities to take away, between 12pm and 8pm Monday to Saturday. You can buy mid strength beer (up to 3.5%) to take away between 12pm to 8pm but only one carton. Now the interesting one. You can buy full strength beer only between 5pm and 8pm to take away and only one carton. But  you can also buy 2 bottles of wine OR one bottle of spirits with that beer. But only between 5pm and 8pm. But you can't buy wine and spirits. So you can imagine the rush on the three liquor outlets between 5pm and 8pm. I think it is probably like the old days when pubs used to close at 10pm and everyone tried to get as much into them as possible in that last hour. When we went to get some beer and bubbles last Monday the queue was about 30 people long. Quite amazing. But there is nothing to stop you going from outlet to outlet and buying more because they don't keep track of who is buying.
Now, what have we been up to these past few days in Kununurra.

Wednesday 1st June 2011
We had a town day today. Did some shopping, went to a gallery and went o see some pink argyle diamonds.
We went to a gallery called  Just Framed.  The artist looks at the Boab trees and sees human characteristics in them. He then sketches a tree with these characteristics. You then see different things in the trees when you look at them. If you want to look at some of his work, have a look at http://www.justframed.com.au/
Next we went for a look at the Argyle Diamond Jewellery Shop. They are certainly beautiful diamonds. A pair of pink diamond studs was $245,000. Yes that is right, nearly a quarter of a million dollars and they were quite small. Ray wouldn't sell the truck and caravan to buy them for me. It is quite a contrast really, millions of dollars worth of diamonds in the shop and outside there are the indigenous people just sitting around the park spending their money on alcohol on the first two days after pay day and then they have nothing for the next 5 days. They just hang around the park all day.

Thursday 2nd June 2011
Another beautiful day in Kununurra. We decided to drive to Wyndham today. As I drove, Ray was able to take some great photos  as we went along. We passed the turn off to the Gibb River Road and as we drove on to Wyndham we passed the eastern side of the Cockburn Ranges. The colour in the mountains is unreal. All different shades of orange and red.

 Ray managed to take a photo of a truck with 4 trailers so you can see how long they are.

Driving into Wyndham we were a bit disappointed. The town is very drab, a lot of very run down houses although there were a few new ones which looked like they were cyclone proof. We went out to the old town of Wyndham where the port is. We were going to go to the crocodile farm and changed our minds as it was in a major state of disrepair. We drove back to the new town and found a lovely new coffee shop, the only new place in town.
Next, up to the highest point. Mt Bastion and the 5 Rivers Lookout. It was a surprise. There are about 300 degree views from the top. You can see where the 5 rivers flow into Cambridge Gulf and then 40km to the Timor Sea. The 5 rivers are the King, Ord, Durack, Forrest and Pentecost.

Tidal mud flats in Cambridge Gulf

View up Cambridge Gulf

Cambridge Gulf looking north

Wyndham from 5 Rivers Lookout

Ray at 5 Rivers Lookout

The Gulf water is quite murky because of all of the flood waters flowing in. The area is suurounded by huge tidal flats.
After this we drove out to the Afghan cemetery. Afghan settlers and cameleers from the 1890's are buried there. The graves are quite big as the Afghans were buried with their lead camels.

Wildflower.

Afghan cameleer graves

We turned out to be having a busy day. The next stop was a 22km drive out to a huge Boab tree they call the prison tree. The prison tree was used as a prison when the police were transporting prisoners to Wyndham. It is hollow inside with a small opening where the police stood guard.

On the way out there we saw a freshwater crocodile just sunbaking on the banks of the river.

Friday 3rd June 2011
Another great day. We headed to Lake Argyle this afternoon to go on a sunset cruise. We had to be at Lake Argyle Village at 1.30pm so we left Kununurra about 12.15pm. On the way to Lake Argyle we passed a spillway where the water was roaring through. We were told later that it is going through at a rate of 1 olympic sized pool of water a second. It was just like major rapids. We saw another croc sunbaking there. They are very common in these parts.

Before we went on our cruise we were going to watch a video about the making of the Lake and dam, but when we got there there was a power black out so we missed that part. We got on the boat about 2.45pm and headed out onto lake Argyle. It is enormous. For navigational purposes it is classed as an inland sea. At the moment it holds as much water as 84 Sydney Harbours. Apparently it is 65km long and 45km wide and all man made to harness the water of the Ord River to irrigate the plains around the river to enable crops to be grown all year round.We cruised around for a few hours looking at different islands(which used to be mountains before being flooded). We stopped to watch the sunset and a few people went for a swim off the back of the boat.

Island on Lake Argyle

Lake Argyle view

Lake Argyle

Maura with some lake views in the background

Colour on islands at sunset

Just before sunset

We then cruised back to the ramp and headed home.

Saturday 4th June 2011
We are having a quiet home day today. we did some shopping and went to the local markets.
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