Kununurra

Kununurra is a new town, founded in the 1960's when the Ord River Irrigation Scheme was started. It is surrounded by farmland, irrigated by an endless supply of water from the massive Lake Argyle - about 21 times the size of Sydney Harbour, and so huge it is classified as an inland sea. Southerners enduring drought conditions would be hard pressed to imagine how much water is held in Lake Argyle, and how little of it is actually used. After nearly 50 years, work has finally started on Stage 2, which will basically double the area under irrigation from 16,000 hectares, although the dam has been designed to irrigate at least 70,000 hectares. Our afternoon boat cruise on the lake covered more than 120km, exploring the far reaches and checking out some of the amazing bird life that lives in the creeks feeding into the lake. The water is completely still, perfect for photos of the tops of the drowned hills that poke out above the waterline.

We also did a day trip to Wyndham, about 100km from Kununurra. This is a port city, used chiefly for live cattle export from the vast cattle stations in the Kimberley, such as the one featured in the recent epic film Australia. The photo of John was taken from a terrific lookout, the port of Wyndham is behind him.

This part of the top end has a lot of boab trees, weird looking things that appear to have roots growing out of the top of them. There is a very large one not far outside Wyndham which was used as a makeshift prison during pioneering days! See the photo below, it dwarfs our Patrol.

And in case you're wondering about the top photo, no this isn't the dam wall of the Lake Argyle Dam, it is a ford across the Ord River downstream from the dam, we crossed this on the back road to Wyndham.