The Kimberleys - Kununurra

Kununurra Diversion Dam.

Kununurra is the main town of the Kimberleys. It came into existence following the creation of the Diversion Dam in the 1960's, and the beginnings of the Ord Irrigation Scheme, and is situated around the shores of Lake Kununurra. It is a town of around 7 to 8,000 people, a large proportion of them Aboriginal. The town is spread out, with many businesses operating out of industrial premises. Everything is covered in steel grilles and bars, which makes it very unattractive. It is an unfortunate reminder of life in an outback town with a large Aboriginal population. Two of the biggest buildings in town are the Police Station and the huge new Court House, currently under construction. There is always a lot of litter when the Aboriginals are around. They sit under the trees in small and large groups, wherever there is shade, and when they move on, either by police pressure or of their own will, their rubbish remains behind! Still the town has all the necessary services, with Coles and IGA Supermarkets, but it is expensive, with most things costing at least 15 to 20% more than in a big city.

Checking the Pumphouse menu.

We have based ourselves at the Big4 Discovery Holiday Park, right on the shore of the lake and next to the original Pumphouse, which is now obsolete, and turned into a nice restaurant, with good coffee! It is a nice park, and we have nice neighbours on both sides of our lake frontage site. It has a good pool, which boy do we need, as every day is approaching 40 and beyond. The only drawback is the mosquitoes. The first night we both got eaten alive! Actually every night we got eaten alive, despite lathering ourselves with repellent! Those little blighters can find every spot you missed! Back to "join the dots"! 

Sausage Sizzle night.

Joy singing up a storm.

We had a couple of great nights at the park. On the Saturday night they hold a sausage sizzle in aid of the Flying Doctor service. Nice snags, patties and steaks with lots of onions. We even had some entertainment, as Joy and Nev, who travel and work their way around Australia, make some extra money with their Karaoke machine. They volunteered their services for the evening, which added to the fun. Even the resident freshwater crocodile, George, called by. He really went off when they played "Crocodile Rock"! George calls in every day from around 4.30pm to talk to the patrons. Seems everyone around the lake has their own crocodile. The Pumphouse has two. Hans, who comes everyday, and then there is Luigi, who only comes on Wednesday nights, Pizza Nights!!! The other great night at the park, was Monday's Beef & Barra night, in aid of the St.John's Ambulance. This was lovely, with great food, and only $10.00 each! They had a really good roll up, with a lot of locals coming out for the night.

Sandalwood and Mango plantations.

Tasting at The Hoochery.

We drove around the Irrigation Area checking out the various crops. The Sandalwood is quite amazing. It is the ugliest crop you've ever seen! Sandalwood is a parasite, and needs a host tree to grow off, so the fields are full of different trees, with the sandalwood attaching itself to one and growing from that root. The Sandalwood Factory, was a really nice stop. The adjoining cafe was the best place around to get a coffee and a light meal as well.. The smells in the shop were amazing, and they had a lotion that was good for easing mossie bites. Aaaaah, lovely! Just down the road was the

The Sandalwood Factory Shop.

Hoochery, a local rum distillery, which started when sugar was one of the crops grown here. Unfortunately, the sugar industry closed up when sugar prices fell during the mid 2000's, but the Hoochery goes on. There is talk that a Chinese consortium is going to take up a large parcel of land in the new releases and replant sugar and build a new sugar mill, most or all of the sugar heading to China. Anyway, the Hoochery product is potent and pricey, but then we aren't rum drinkers. The other big crop is mango. There are literally tens of thousands of trees, all getting ready to fruit. Unfortunately, none ready to go as yet. Melons are also pretty big, but that season was over. The one thing that goes all year long is Diamonds. The Argyle Diamond Mine, accounts for 30% of the world's

A Girl's best friend!
How'd she get my wallet?

annual diamond production, and 100% of the world's pink diamond production. The Kimberley Diamond Store in town, is a pretty special diamond shop. They design and manufacture on site, and there are lots of individual stones for sale. With pink diamonds selling at 20 times the price of regular diamonds, there were some pretty fancy prices, and some beautiful pieces. I love the way they regulate the annual volume of pink diamonds. Only a champagne flute of cut stones per year is released, and these are sold by tender all over the world. The prices are never divulged, just the average price per carat! Now that's a nice monopoly to own! It just seems so bizarre, that one minute you are looking at a diamond pendant worth $300,000 plus, and then you step outside and dodge the group of Black Fellas sitting on the grassy verge having a beer!

We did one lovely tour, which picked us up from the shores of the lake at the caravan park. Triple JJJ Tours, runs a fast speed boat from Kununurra, all the way up the lake, to the Ord River Dam Wall, a distance of 55 kilometres. It was fantastic, skimming across the lake at high

JJJ Tour to the Ord Dam.

speed, surrounded by the most amazing scenery, and seeing

Magnificent scenery.

so much wonderful bird life. On the way up to the dam, there were only around 10 of us on board, but at the dam wall, we collected another 20 passengers off a bus trip, for the return journey. The skipper was a young fella called Dylan, and he was very knowledgeable about the lake, the geological history, the natural history, the wildlife, as well as the history of the dam and the area's original pioneers. He must have close

Red crested Jacana with bub.

to the best "office" on earth, and I bet his job won't be coming

Testing the release valve.

up some time soon! He stopped regularly, and he took us up some side creeks, all the time explaining the magnificent waterway. We passed lots of families out on the lake swimming and fishing. Remember, they only have "freshies" around here, so safe to swim. When we reached the dam wall, we headed over to the bank to collect the new passengers. We were in for a real

Afternoon tea is served.

treat as they were working on the dam's power station, and

Locals enjoy the lake.

opened up one of the release valves. This apparently doesn't happen too often, and you could feel the surge of power as the water started to boil around us. It lasted for about 10 minutes and you could see that it had raised the river level. On the way back down stream, we stopped for a lovely afternoon tea, at a bush camp the JJJ team have

White breasted Sea Eagle.

established on the riverbank. It is in a nice lazy bend of the river and has tables and toilets and lots of shade cloth. The food was excellent as well, with pumpkin scones and carrot cake,fresh fruit, and lots of hot and cold drinks. As we headed further down towards Kununurra, the birds became more active in the cooling air, and we were treated to some great sights. Carolyn got a fantastic shot of a white breasted sea eagle, in flight. As we approached town, we slowed down to make the most of sunset, and weren't disappointed. It was lovely, but then they are all good up here! We got dropped back at our caravan park landing, upsetting George, who was hanging around checking out the locals on his daily visit. 

Wyndham's Giant crocodile.

Huge tides in Wyndham.

Not far from Kununurra, is the most northerly town in WA, Wyndham. It is a port town, exporting live cattle and nickel. We took a drive, stopping along the way at a place called "The Grotto". It is just off the road, and is a deep gully, at the foot of a waterfall. The water is supposedly 300 feet deep! The area is cool and tree covered. At Wyndham, we were totally underwhelmed. It is spread out all over the place. The wharf district is nowhere near the town centre. Most things are old, and there is a very large Aboriginal population. I really admire those people working with them for a better life. There sure is a lot of money spent on housing and services. They seem to adapt easily to the bad  things in the white man's life, like alcohol, junk food, gambling and tobacco. However things like neat & tidy have no place in their practical viewpoint on life. When something has been used or ceases to work it is discarded, so the

Wyndham from Five Rivers Lookout.

streets and yards are full of junk and rubbish, and you

The new wharf.

definitely wouldn't want to own a lawn mower business! A good example of the Government money being spent in the outback, is the new wharf. This is just a recreational fishing wharf, built for the big tides. It must have cost millions and could tie up the Queen Mary 11! We had thought this would be a busy port, but it looked disused, though they were loading a bulk carrier with what we think was

Tribute to Afghan Cameleers.

nickel, but there is no fancy loader, it was being loaded onto

Brolga at Parry's Lagoon.

barges, towed out to the carrier and then self loaded using the ships cranes. Very small time operation. The major attraction in Wyndham is the Five Rivers Lookout, which is 350 metres above town on the Bastion Ranges, and gives an amazing view out over the waters of the Cambridge Gulf, into which flow the the Ord, Pentecost, King, Forrest and Durack Rivers. It is spectacular. We also managed to find an oasis in town, the Five Rivers Cafe, which had surprisingly good coffee and cake to share.

Loading nickel at Wyndham.

The history of the Afghan Cameleers is also well recorded in Wyndham. These quite amazing men used to meet the ships, and then set off on treks over hundreds of miles, taking supplies to the outlying cattle stations. The Afghan Cemetery, was quite interesting with its huge graves. Apparently they used to bury the lead camel with the boss!! As we headed back to Kununurra, we stopped in at Parry's Lagoon. It is a place you can camp, though there was no one in attendance. It usually closes at end of September, and even though the sign said OPEN, we think otherwise. Nonetheless, we did get a nice surprise seeing a large flock of Brolga. These graceful birds put on a bit of a show, which was exciting as we had only previously seen these guys as a pair.

Also whilst at Kununurra we did unbelievable tours of the Bungle Bungles and El Questro. I will do separate stories on each.