Moving East to the W A Border

  08/09/2011
  Last night at Turkey Creek we just flopped in our chairs under the awning, swatting bugs and drinking beer, we didn’t even bother to cook a meal. Just sat and nattered about the fantastic Bungle Bungles.
  Today it’s  back to the reality of travel as our priority is now to get over to the East Coast by the end of the month. We have moved on to Kununurra, just a few kilometres from the W A/Northern Territories border. A pleasant town and a very good camp site with a lovely pool. We will regroup here and move on in a couple of days.

  09/09/2011
   Kununurra is unusual for W A as it has the benefit of free water, a gift, apparently to compensate for the inconvenience when they built the Ord River Dam.  As a result, this campsite encourages you to water the grass around your site, and this allows you to wash your van.!    Well it hasn’t had a wash since we bought it in May.
 Another odd thing about this place is the policy on Aborigines and booze. Alcohol cannot be purchased before 5 pm and not at all on Sundays, and there is a restriction on quantity. We went to buy 3 cartons of beer from the Bottle-o, but we were only allowed 1 carton each, we got another a little later from another outlet!  One person is restricted to buying only 2 bottles of wine at one time, and we have no idea what the restrictions on buying spirits is. All this legislation seems to do is to create very long queues at the Bottle-o at 5 o’clock. We didn’t see many Aborigines in the queues . We reckon the lawmakers here must have been educated in the same asylum as ours at home.

 10/09/2011
  We have moved on from Kununurra but not very far. We are at the Lake Argyle resort just 70K’s away. A place we stayed at 2 years ago. We remembered it as a very picturesque area with typical red sandstone ranges of the Kimberley, and the largest expanse of fresh water in Australia. The River Ord was dammed forty odd years ago creating this enormous inland sea. It takes around an hour to fly over it.
  The plan was to combine a day looking around, an overnight stop then hitting the road tomorrow, but we have decided to stay an extra night, and do the sights in the morning. It’s a very nice campsite with a bar, so we are about to check it out.

  11/09/2011
  Spent a pleasant hour in the bar (Lake Argyle Inn) with a couple of stubbies of VB last night, listening to an average woman singer. She was hinting at a $5 donation for her efforts, we gave it a miss.
 Today we went for a drive around the area, visiting Dead Horse Springs, the River Ord spillway which had a lot of water in it, then a waterfall that didn’t.  It only falls in the wet!  There was a small amount of water at the base, which attracted 100’s of colourful butterflies. On to the Ord River Dam where there are a couple of lookouts over Lake Argyle, or at least the Northern end of it, it goes on for miles.  We crossed the dam and then went down to a lovely shaded grassed area----- We got out the portable gas ring and made a brew.  Jolly swagmen, Dirty great billabongs and coolabahs trees spring to mind.
  The weather has been a little unseasonal these last 3 days, gusting winds, which has been blowing in a smoke haze. There is a bush fire just over the border in Northern Territory. By lunch time today however the wind had changed, blew the smoke away and calmed down. Just the afternoon for a dip in the infinity pool here at the caravan park. The pool is built on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the lake and has a “wet edge”, which means when you swim out, you feel as though you are going to swim over the edge! Very impressive. Pictures to follow. What the picture don’t show is that the water was freezing cold!!