Into WA

You cross the WA border just 5 kms west of Keep NP. You are confronted with the most serious quarantine station I have seen, so take care to eat all your fruit, seeds, honey and vegetables before you get there. The supermarkets in Kununurra do a brisk trade on the strength of it. We suddenly gained an hour and a half too, but the sunset is now awfully early. Shortly after the border there is a left turn to Lake Argyle, and as our brother-in-law Paul’s father was nearly driven to the wall as a subcontractor on the dam building, we took the time to see the video about the construction, showing at the pub in the little township there. It also rained – yay! The combination of 20 degrees, gentle breeze and rain had me convinced I was in the UK in August. The Durack link crops up again here because the principal cattle station owned by the Duracks up to the time the Ord scheme was started was called “Argyle Downs”, and was drowned. As the Duracks had lots of clout locally, money was found to remove the old homestead stone by stone beforehand. After completion of the scheme in 1972 more money was found to relocate the main part of the stone house to a new location overlooking the lake, which now serves as a memorial to all the pioneers.

The rain followed us for the rest of the day, as we drove temporarily past Kununurra towards Wyndham, and pitched up at Parry Creek Billabong. This is a charming private enterprise place with a long stretch of bird filled lagoon that you can camp along. There are good facilities, and a sunrise over the water not to be equalled easily.

An early start next morning, with rapidly clearing skies and the ground still damp, had us exploring a tiny track along Parry Creek and across broad grasslands towards the distant Gulf. We met up with another Land Cruiser that we had followed much of the way at a distance. A lovely young couple with four children, Richard and Jenny Lehman; he is the ranger at Bullita Homestead in Gregory NP. So we had a lot to discuss and compare with our beloved Currango. Mostly the different attitude that National Parks in the NT and WA have towards 4WD access and camping, compared with the NSW Kosciuszko mob.

We booked into the Toyota dealer in Kununurra to have a gearbox leak checked out (overfilled in Alice), and that meant a forced stop for the weekend. There is a lot to take in here, with the extensive Ord River Irrigation Scheme, the ghost town of Wyndham where live cattle, mining and agricultural exports have revived the port (fantastic view of Wyndham, the junction of five rivers flowing into Cambridge Gulf from The Bastion, that rises 300 metres behind the town), the famous prisoner tree – an enormous hollow boab where offenders were held until the magistrate would arrive. We explored a 32 km parallel track on our return to Kununurra: it was testing, with large cobbles in the King River bed that we had to cross, and bulldust that ran for hundreds of metres at a stretch. On arrival out on the Gibb River Rd we looked back at the exit gate which said CLOSED but luckily had not been padlocked. In Kununurra we have found a lakeside campsite beside the Lily Lagoon, where we are very happy to rest up and restock, before we continue our march westwards tomorrow.

The rain we had earlier caused the access road to the Bungle Bungle (Purnululu NP) south of where we are, to be closed. We had thought we would go down there, but as it would be another 1000 kms we thought we would “save some salt for the bread”, and hold that over for another time. However the cost of taking a flight from here, over Lake Argyle and the Argyle Diamond Mine to the Bungle Bungles is a reasonable $265 a head. This morning we were up at 5am and leaving the ground at 6, on a flight we would really recommend. The scale of the Bungle Bungle is such that you can only take it in from the air, and you see a most extraordinary landscape that was only made known to the public in 1983. Before that, just helicopter pilots and the local cattle owners knew of it. A Channel 9 film crew came here then to make a documentary on the Ord scheme, but when a helicopter pilot took them for a jaunt they changed their brief and made the docco about the Bungles instead. Now it’s a World Heritage site. Our other brother-in-law Graham, managed the diamond mine about 12 years ago, so it was very interesting to hear the story of how the diamonds were first found (at around the same time, in 1983 or thereabouts) and to see what has become the world’s main source of coloured diamonds, now worth over $1m a carat. If you visit the mine, and drop something, the word is that you put up your hand and wait until your guide picks it up for you! I still think Graham could have managed something in his trouser turn-ups!

The plan now? Tomorrow we go to the famed El Questro resort for a day or two (river camping, not the $700 per day suites), with a canoe down the Chamberlain River. Then, on along the Gibb River Road to the Mitchell Plateau where we hope to find the “Bradshaws”. This is rock art that puts the cat among the pigeons from an aboriginal point of view, and it is not promoted at all. But we have secret instructions and a map with a cross on it! After the Mitchell Falls we’ll go back to the Gibb River Road and onwards towards Broome in about a fortnight or so. We’ll be incommunicado until then. So, g’day for now.

PS Helen has loaded more photos - see links at left. It's a slow job - only until end of Flinders Ranges so far!