Monday 14th June 2004
After sleeping in until well after daylight this morning it felt
a little strange to still be up by 7.am. This moving the
clocks back by an hour and a half certainly makes it easier to
get up at a respectable time in the morning, even if it does get
dark a lot earlier in the evening.
Our first task this morning was to visit the local Coles Store
and stock up on our fruit and vegetables. This created a
welcome fix for 'one of us' as not only was she in a Coles Store,
she was in a Coles Store in Western Australia and there were a
few things that were not often seen in the eastern states stores
whilst we have been away.
Once the purchases had been made we returned to the caravan and
enjoyed an early lunch consisting of a couple of very tasty fresh
bread rolls filled with salad, followed by a very tasteless rock
melon... I guess
you
can't
win
them all.
After lunch we went back into town and visited the Tourist Centre,
then headed off back out the Victoria Highway to the Ord River
Dam and Lake Argyle turnoff, about 35 kilometres out toward the
NT border, then drove the 30 kilometres in to the Main Dam on Lake
Argyle. This took us through some very beautiful red break
away country that one imagines when thinking of the Kimberly area. We
stopped many times to take photographs on the way, including once
to photograph some red tailed black cockatoos in the top of a boab
tree at the side of the road.
Once we reached Lake Argyle itself and the main dam, we viewed
and photographed it from several angles before driving across
it to a very lush green picnic area on the other side. We
then returned over the dam and started to make our way out of the
Argyle Village, which consists of a caravan park, motel and a few
other small enterprises. Just out of this village we turned
in to the Durack Homestead Museum which displays some of the details
of the Durack family who once ran the cattle property where Lake
Argyle now exists. Their homestead was covered by water when
the dam was constructed, however there are some headstones and
other items from that property on display in the replica of their
original home. Entry was only $3 per adult so was well worth
the visit.
We then continued on our return journey to Kununurra and the caravan
park where we settled in once again for the night.
Tomorrow at about 2.00pm we get picked up from the caravan park
for a two hour fixed wing flight over Kununurra, Lake
Argyle, Argyle Diamond
Mine
and
the
Bungle
Bungles,
returning
to
Kununurra
at about 4.30pm.