Before leaving Halls Creek we took a small detour to Old Halls Creek. This was the site of the first town in the area after the discovery of gold and WAs first gold rush. Unfortunately the plaques that tell the history have been stolen or removed long ago. There were well protected remains of mud brick buildings and some stone building also. Couldn't say for fact what any of the buildings were though.
On the way back we stopped at The China Wall without needing passports too. The China Wall is a natural rock formation that looks like the china original (there are two words that don't often go together) as it goes up over a hill. Apparently the formation continues for several kilometers and is best seen from the air. We wouldn't know this by reading the sign because the sign was missing here also.
The China Wall.
The time change from NT to WA has really upset the equilibrium of the three girls. They have now taken to waking up between 0500 and 0530. It is dark before 6pm also because WA doesn't do daylight savings. There was a referendum several years ago and daylight savings was voted down.
We pulled in to Kununurra and stayed at the Kimberley Land park in a site on the banks of lake Kununurra. What we didn't know was there was already a booking for the site that we couldn't argue with. The tenant showed itself later that night but would return subsequent night to really stake a claim.
01/11 Friday
Friday morning we began exploring Kununurra though a lot of the hard work had already been done for us by nanny and poppy who were up this way about a month ago. The cafe that was recommended was Wild Mango.
Before taking lunch at Wild Mango we visited Zebra Rock Gallery. The gallery makes stuff from a stripy silica stone found in a few places in the region. A lot of it is really beautiful stuff. All the girls picked out some lovely jewelry as a momento. Bianca and Chantelle found a bracelet that incorporated the stone, pearls and some glittery bits.
We drove out of town a ways to visit the Hoochery. This place is a licensed rum distiller and grows its own sugar cane to process into rum. We talked to them about the process and some of the liquor license rules that they have been subject to. The Hoochery today is not allowed to sell its rum to Kununurra locals, though it was not long ago that they couldn't sell to anyone in northern WA. Any sales they make they need to check ID to confirm the sale first, what a pain! The Hoochery makes four types of rum. The strongest is a single barrel rum at 74% alcohol by volume. There is also a couple of liquers, a chocolate-coffee and mango.
Only a little way down the road was the sandalwood shop (TFS). Many farmers grow sandalwood for this sandalwood shop under contract. We have seen the sandalwood growing in fields and it is a very messy crop. Sandalwood is a parasitic plant meaning it needs a host plant to grow on and eventually kills its host. When it is growing there are several different types of foliage in each row.
Sandalwood sells at auction in India for $100 per kg of heart wood and about 90% of Indian sandalwood is poached. TFS will be doing its first harvest early next year. This harvested wood will be chipped in Kununurra and trucked to Albany WA to have the oil extracted and the oil will be sold to perfumeries or medical companies.
02/11 Saturday
On Saturday Angela had booked us on the Lake Argyle sunset cruise. From Kununurra Lake Argyle is about 70km on th NT side of town. The lake is immense! It has 21 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour yet the dam wall is only about 300m long. It was completed in 1972 to provide cheap reliable irrigation water to the Ord river valley. The dam was the brain child of the Durack family who foundered and ran Argyle Downs Station over which most of the lake water sits today.
The amount of water in this lake is unfathomable. Once in a rain event the level of the dam rose 9m over its normal level. This doubled its capacity. At that time enough water was being released each day to supply the water needs of WA for a year. The lakes surface area is 703km2 or 173000 acres. Several times there have been plans or studies done to pipe water from Lake Argyle to Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane or several other places. Each time the cost of water at the other end has made the scheme prohibitive.
The cruise tour left the Argyle roadhouse by bus just after 2pm for the short drive into the dam to where the boats are kept. There were only 11 people on our boat which could have carried 40 or more. After the safety briefing we motored past the diversion wall. The diversion wall was put in in 1989 to double the capacity of the dam to provide guaranteed water for the hydroelectric facility if there were several bad consecutive wet seasons. The power station provides enough power for the region. We passed the dam wall next to get an appreciation of its size. There is no concrete in the wall, it is made with a core of rammed local clay covered with local boulders and rocks. The construction cost was $22m including building the town of Kununurra and the work town where the Argyle Caravan park is now. The cost was so low because they were able to use clay and rock that was close to the construction site. To quarry the rock they let loose the two biggest conventional explosions in Australian history. The second and largest registered on equipment in Sydney and Java!
The cruise took us to several islands where colonies of wallabies live stranded there. They are very nimble jumping up and down rock faces to get to the food the tour guide threw out for them. After the dam flooded Harry Buttler led the task to capture stranded animals on the smaller islands. They left those on the larger islands and repopulated one island to study what happens to the wallabies and their favoured food in a controlled space. This population has stabilised to conserve enough food for all the population. Clever little beasties.
We stopped for a quick cooling dip in the lake. The water temperature was a balmy 31 degrees. We all floated around off the back of the boat for a few minutes before heading on to the crocodile hatchery. This was an area that has the perfect conditions for freshwater crocodiles to mate, dig a burrow to bury eggs for incubating. The little hatchlings have plenty of water weed to hide in but still only about one in every hundred makes adulthood. There were several recently hatched crocodiles hiding out in the water weed. There are about 25,000 fresh water crocodiles living in the dam and these numbers remain stable naturally without eating out all available food sources.
We cruised past the BBQ islands that once had BBQs and shelters until storms washed them all away several years ago. The storms on the lake can whip up 2m waves that can be quite destructive. Hard to believe when it is like a millpond today.
We stopped again to feed fish. Most of the fish here we have encountered previously. There are Lomtom (like gar fish), grunters, catfish, some barra, and archer fish. The archer fish were fun to feed. When we held out bread the archer fish would spit water to hit the bread and knock it into the water. They were able to spit water far enough to hit some of us in the face! The catfish only ate the bread if it was thrown hard into the water, otherwise they would swim right by the bread.
After feeding the fish we headed, at speed, to the sunset viewing area. We watched the sunset from the water, floating on noodles around the back of the boat. Oh yeah, there were drinks and nibbles too! The nibbles were on an esky lid which floated from person to person and we enjoyed a drink while floating in the warm water. That is the life!
Back to the mooring area and the tour was over and we drove back to Kununurra for dinner. On the way back there was a massive snake on the road. Nicholas turned the car around for a second look. A beautiful looking specimen.
Back at the camper Angela and Nicholas were relaxing after the girls were asleep when the gate crasher returned to stake its claim more forcefully. The perpetrator was a 2.5m Johnstoni crocodile.
On Sunday morning we drove the 100km to Wyndham for lunch and an explore. Again thankfully we benefitted from nanny and poppy going before us. They recommended having barra and chips at the Wyndham Hotel. A very good suggestion!
We ordered three serves to share which was plenty for us. The family at the next table ordered a chicken burger per child and the burgers were enough to feed three people each! After lunch we headed down the road to the Rusty Shed cafe for dessert and iced coffees. We were surprised to be served by a young man of about 10 years old! He did better with our orders than some 'trained' wait staff have done. A most polite and accommodating young man. His younger sister was helping with the orders while their mum worked hard in the kitchen out back. We enjoyed the drinks and home made desserts and our girls made friends with the 'staff'. Our girls were invited outside for a play on the trampoline. They have a novel way of cooling down out here, hook the garden sprinkler on the trampoline wall and turn it on. They were all soaked to the skin and had an absolute ball! We were just about to drag the girls away when the mum came out with a plate loaded with fresh cut watermelon. What a treat! We spoke with the mum for a while as there was a lul in the shop.
When we were finally able to drag the girls away from their new friends we drove up to the five rivers lookout. The Wyndham inlet is where five major local rivers flow into the ocean, the Ord, Pentecost, Durack, King and Forrest, from the lookout we could see the mouth of four rivers, the fifth being behind us.
Wyndham port was established to supply Halls Creek during the gold rush in 1886. The town became a major trade centre in the Kimberley region. We visited the pioneer cemetery where 12 men were buried after dying of heat exhaustion when building the meat works in 1919. The meat works was important to the area as it was still difficult in the early 1900s to transport cattle to market in Perth.
There is also an Afghan cemetery at Wyndham. Why we call the cameleers Afghans makes little sense as they came to Australia from India, Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. The Afghan graves are very large because they are generally buried with their lead camel. Not a hole we'd like to dig nor would we like to be a young lead camel to an old master!
After an enjoyable day at Wyndham we started the drive back to Kununurra. We were about 25km from town when there was an almighty bang under the the car. We pulled over and took a look. The car was hot and there was water leaking but nothing obvious was wrong. The car was still running but the battery light was on. We all walked back up the road to see what we could find but there was nothing that stood out. Back at the car Nicholas limped the car along a little way while Angela scanned for phone coverage. Nicholas noted no power steering and little breaks, another look under the bonnet confirmed the drive belt was missing! With mobile reception we called once again for a tow back to town. The drive belt and a pulley had broken will be all week for the parts to get to Kununarra from Melbourne.
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