Beautiful lakes and rivers and fun, busy days

Hi there….

Monday august 21

The past couple of days in Kununurra have been great- hot clear days (as usual up here)…have been for some nice morning walks around the lake, and also bought some of the fresh fruit and veg grown up here, thanks to the extensive irrigation from the Ord River. Yesterday we went to Barra Barra farm and had lovely fruit smoothies and bought some home-made jams and chutneys, along with some pickled boab!

Today, our day trip was excellent!! The cruise on huge Lake Argyle was informative and impressive-we saw shy short-eared rock wallabies, freshwater crocs, lots of fish etc and really gained an appreciation of how massive the body of water is- equal to 24 Sydney Harbours!!

That was followed by a wonderful 50k trip back down the Ord River and into Lake Kununurra. Great scenery, steep gorge walls, rolling hills, narrow side creeks, awesome reflections, bird life…plus a very informative guide who explained a lot about the area and how the lakes were formed when the dams were built etc. The area is now so fertile and has so much water, there has been talk of how it could be piped to Perth or SA. Cost is obviously the big obstacle. On the way back we stopped on the river bank and were served afternoon tea of fresh pumpkin scones and muffins – not good for the waistline but very yummy!

Tomorrow is our scenic flight! Cant wait. Both tired and having fun.

Tuesday August 22

We rose at 5am for our 6am scenic flight (5.30 pickup) . The flight was excellent! We saw Lake Argyle, the huge Argyle diamond mine and also of course the Bungle Bungles- very impressive beehive formations from the air! The scale of the formations etc, not to mention the other rugged ranges and gorges which make up this region. It really is a tough wilderness.

We then drove to Wyndham for the day- it’s the most northerly town in WA- and the only port between Broome and Darwin. An interesting “frontier” town. The museum was full of local history and stories from the war etc, plane crashes and ship wrecks up here and stories of survival.

The area has some of the biggest tides in the world and we had amazing views from a lookout, over an area where five different rivers converge….with extensive tidal flats and salt plains in the distance, surrounded by large mountain ranges.

We ate lunch at the pub (a barra burger and chips!) and then took a 4wd track to see an old boab tree, which was used as a prison in the early days! It’s hollow on the inside and there is a hole on one side and they used to put prisoners in there overnight and lock them up!

We also bought a carved boab fruit (dried) from a local Aboriginal- it’s really good!

After that we checked out Parry’s wetlands and a local billabong full of birds, and stopped at a waterhole called “the grotto” on the way home (it was in a gorge).
So a big day! Got back to the van at 6pm!

Tomorrow we have to repack the car and the van as we are storing the van the day after and heading into El Questro station for five nights. We are staying in one of their bungalows which should be great! From there we’ll pick up the van and head down to Turkey Creek to access the Bungle Bungles. Will once again store the van and head into the Bungle Bungles and camp for a couple of nights and do the walks etc.

So we won’t have internet access for at least a week. Then there will be no doubt a lengthy update on here as I’ll continue to keep a diary of our activities on the computer in the meantime.
Sadly the internet reception here is not good enough for uploading pics. Perhaps we’ll put a stack on when we reach Broome.

Sending love and hugs,
Emma and Adam xx