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.
Blogyalata

Longreach to Kununurra

Well, we have finally reached Kununurra which is really the start of our trip. We didn't stop at many places along the way as we wanted to get to Kununurra. The following is the tale of our trek from Longreach to Kununurra.

Sunday 22nd May 2011
After leaving Longreach we encountered a lot of heavy vehicles, mainly cattle trucks with three trailers. We even met one with 4 trailers. They mainly move between the mine sites. I have never seen so much road kill on the road. It would be a hillbillies banquet.
We stopped at a place called McKinlay for an ice cream. Its claim to fame is that it has the "Walkabout Creek Hotel" which was in the Crocodile Dundee movies.
We decided to stop for the night at Cloncurry at the Gilbert Park Hotel. Lo and behold, there is a notice in the bathroom about Australian Tree Frogs living in the toilet. They ask you just to ignore them when you flush as they just climb back under the rim and go back to sleep. Frog in bog, what a hoot.
We are also not very current with the news as you don't get todays papers until tomorrow and there is no TV signal. But I don't suppose we are missing out on much.

Driving into Mt Isa

Monday 23rd May 2011
We got away from Cloncurry about 10am as we had to catch up on some shopping and by the time we got away the road trains were on the road too. They were talking to us on the two way and they must be a different breed to the truckies at home as these ones don't swear. I find this amazing.
We stopped at a WW 2 Memorial on the side of the road for a cuppa and were joined by this old pain in the backside bloke. He was actually trying to sponge a feed of us as he couldn't be bothered making his own. Ray and I just pretended we didn't know what he was on about and he went back to his car and drove on. It certainly takes all types. We ended up stopping at Camooweal which is just before the Queensland/NT border. You had to go into the pub to pay for the caravan park and Ray very quickly volunteered to do that job.

Tuesday 24th May 2011
We headed across the Barklay Highway and it was pretty windy. We pulled up early at Wonorah Bore. Until the early 1940's the road going from Mt Isa to Three Ways was a dirt track. When the Americans were here during WW2 they had a lot of camps in the north of Australia and they improved the road to make getting between the camps easier. In the early 1950's the government decided to seal the road. There are many rest areas set up at what used to be road worker camps. They had to sink bores to get water and Wonorah bore is one of these old camps. The windmill to drive the bore is broken but there is still plenty of water in the dam. There are heaps of zebra finches hunting around for seed. By the time late afternoon came there were about 25 caravans and camper vans around us. A very popular place.

Sunset at Wonorah Bore

Camped beside the bore

The view from the caravan door at Wonorah Bore

Ray did his good samaritan bit a couple of times He helped an old fellow to fix a car he was towing behind a bus. Then another caravanner was driving down the road and we heard this terrible grinding noise. His water tank under his van had come loose on one side and as trailing on the road. So Ray helped him get it back on by cutting some fence wire and tying up the water tank. Not long after this we witnessed a beautiful sunset.

Wednesday 25th May 2011
We got away very early as it had been a cold night and we wanted to get going. We headed for Three Ways, which is the intersection of the Stuart and Barklay Highways. Turn left and you head to Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and Adelaide. Turn right and you head to Katherine and Darwin. We turned right and went to Banka Banka Station which is a pastoral station about 70 km from Three Ways. We have stayed there before and decided to stay for 2 nights. The last time we stayed there it was owned by the Kidman family but apparently they sold it to The Aboriginal Land Council, a federal government body. They are going to turn it into a training facility for stockmen etc. It is still a very pretty place with lots of character.

The view of the campground at Banka Banka Station.

Road train going past Banka Banka Station

We met some great people there round the campfire including a mother and son, Simon and Marcia who were travelling from Adelaide to Darwin and then Marcia was going to fly back to Adelaide.
More good samaritan work. A fellow had a flat tyre on his Motorhome and didn't have to tools to get the wheel off???? So Ray helped him with the assistance of a fellow from Tassie who happened to be a mechanic. Then he had a flattening tyre so they fixed that. Then a poor fellow limped in on a Harley. He had just had a service done in Alice Springs and some problems occurred and oil was spraying everywhere. So Bob the mechanic and Ray were able to help him luckily as we were a long way from Harley help. After about two hours the fellow continued  on his way to Darwin.

Friday 27th May 2011
We got away early and headed up the highway turning off the highway to go into Daly Waters.
Daly Waters was named in 1861 after the governor of SA, Sir Dominic Daly. The area wasn't actually occupied until the 1920's when Bill and Rita Pearce opened a drovers store which is now the Daly Waters pub.
The airfield at Daly Waters was Australia's first international airport when it opened its hangar doors for the Australia to England air race.
We are in the caravan park beside the pub. Each night they have a beef and barra feed in the pub. You can have beef only or barra only or a mixture of both so we took all barra.
The pub is amazing. Very old and there are all sorts of mementos hanging on the walls. Undies, bras, hats, money from all over the world, badges, caps. I didn't give them my undies as thay would have taken up too much room and I wanted to leave room for the undies of all of the skinny back packers working in the pub.
We went over for happy hour about 4.30pm and were joined by Simon and Marcia, the mother and son from Banka Banka. After dinner was over they asked Ray and Maura to come up on the stage??? It turns out that for every 1000th beef and barra meal sold you get you money back. So Ray and I were the 2000th beef and barra meal sold for 2011. Not bad for a little pub off the beaten track. We got our money back, plus a bottle of red and a plaque. The plaque is made by Chilli, who is the entertainer at the pub and we went over to his shop the next morning and he engraved it with our names. A nice souvenir. We also bought his CD as he was a pretty good entertainer.

The campground at Daly Waters

The plaque which was part of our prize

A monitor lizard swimming across the creek at Daly Waters

Bar at Daly Waters

Beef and Barra BBQ area

Outside Daly Waters Pub

Saturday 28th May 2011
We had breakfast at the pub the next morning and got talking to a lovely English girl who is travelling around Oz with her boyfriend and both of them were offered work and decided to stop a while. Apparently if they are on a working visa and work for 88 days in a rural area they get an extra 12 months work visa. That is why there are so many English and Irish travellers working out in the bush.
We got way about 9am and headed on to the Buchanan Highway to Top Springs. The highway is just red  dust and gravel and by the time we reached Top Springs we were covered in red dust. But the van is air tight that we had hardly any dust inside.

Buchanan Highway

The caravan park at Top Springs is also the pub, service station and shop. The pub isn't allowed to sell any take away alcohol until Monday as there was a riot at the Kalkarindji (Wave Hill) settlement the Friday week before and the authorities stopped Top Springs selling the grog as that was probably where the aboriginals had got it. Consequently there were a few aboriginals camped outside the servo waiting for the grog on Monday. They are harmless though just fighting amongst themselves.

Sunday 29th May 2011
Today we are heading to Timber Creek on the Victoria Highway which is the main drag from Katherine to Kununurra. It was a great drive. The road was a bit rougher than yesterday, sometimes narrowing down to nothing more than a goat track. We crossed lots of creeks but the deepest was only about 30cm  so we had no problems. We saw lots of Brahman cattle, eagles and roos There was beautiful scenery all along the drive including the Jaspers Gorge with soaring red cliffs.

Brahman Bull

Buchanan Highway getting narrower

Dashwood Crossing

Jaspers Creek

Jaspers Gorge

 We checked into the Timber Creek Caravan Park and when we took a walk down to the creek some employees came along to feed the crocs in the creek!!!!. More travellers. This time they were Irish girls from County Cork out here on a working holiday. Fish, turtles and crocs were fed.

Monday 30th May 2011
Today we got to Kununurra. We took some photos of the Victoria River which flows through Timber Creek and also stopped at Saddle Rest Area to take some photos of the ranges. Every creek we went over had water flowing through it. We cleared the quarantine check point and lost a carrot and some cauliflower. That was all of the vegies we had left. We have checked into the Kimberleyland caravan park. Made me think we were going to Wally World. But no, it is very nice. We have a great spot beside the pool and we have booked in for a week to have a good look around.

Tuesday 31st May 2011
Today we decided we would just have a look around Kununurra. We went for a drive out to Ivanhoe Crossing. We knew that it was closed but we just wanted to have a look. Well when we got there the Ord River was roaring. It was way over the concrete causeway. In fact the road closed sign was nearly submerged.

Ivanhoe Crossing south side

Ivanhe Crossing north side

We then drove around the long way to the other side of the crossing and took a few photos. The locals say that Ivanhoe Crossing will not open this season due to the amount of water in the lakes. On the way back we crossed a creek and stopped to take a few photos of a small waterfall. There is water everywhere.