Kununurra to Cairns

After leaving Perth for Kununurra I was glad to see that the weather on my arrival was nice and hot, as Perth was starting to get a little chilly. I was met by the guys from the farm and given a ute so that I could get around and sort out the house that they had supplied me.

To my surprise I was given a 5 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and a kitchen to myself located about 15km outside the main town and about the same distance from the farm. The house was excellent except for a couple of snakes that I had to get removed as they had not paid any rent. Well two of them I got my next door neighbour to remove (yes I was scared) and the other one I removed myself (yes I was drunk).

The first day on the farm was eventfully being put in a tractor with some instruction and off I went. The farm I was working on grew Grapefruits, not the normal sort you get back home but red grapefruits. They are so good, you don't even need to put any sugar on them. After finishing my first day I was informed that I owed a starting carton (slab of beer). As I quickly found out this is the currency of the Kimberlys and so over my time at the farm I had to by 4 or 5 for various mistakes and of course to cover the leaving carton, which I am sure the fellas made up for when I left.

Working on the farm was so much fun and I leant a lot from driving tractors, spreading fertilizers, spraying chemicals and fixing irrigation lines as well as changing a lot of tyres. We normally worked 6 days a week from 6 to 3 which worked out quite well as it left the rest of the arvo to hook into the beer. Luckily living out of town a bit I managed to save a bit of money but Friday night was always a bit one at the pub in town so many a Saturday morning I would wake up in my sleeping bag in the front of the ute.

Days off were spent water skiing, fishing or getting drunk while doing one or the other. The company I had work for in Perth had brought me a scenic flight over the bungle bungles which I used the second on third week I was in Kununurra. The flight was fantasitic (thanks again guys).

All was going well until I decided to take up a friends offer of going horseriding. After a couple of goes around the round yard I was ginerly following my mate into the feild, however the horse had other ideas and noticing that
1) I was completly incompetant and
2) I was english decided to buck me off.

Landing on the floor and cracking a couple of ribs all my mate could comment was "why diddn't you hold on" typical Australian.

After this little mishap I was lucky enough to be able to do some office work on the farm while I mended up. However this did mean I had to drink more in the evenings so that I could get a good nights sleep. Anyway after 6 weeks of moaning and winging I was all mended. The last month or so in Kununurra I really started exploring around outback surrounding town with the guys from work or by borrowing a 4WD. Getting to some nice watering holes and springs to chill out and you guessed it have some beer.

I was lucky enough to be in Kununurra during the Ord Valley Muster, a bit month long celebration with loads of diffrent things going on around town. A month later was the Agricultural show where I was handing out Grapefruit samples and then drinking all my wages that eveing while watching the fireworks put on by Argle Diamond Mine. Not to mention the two rodeos that I managed to get to. God knows what possesses someone to ride a wild bull or horse.

A friend from Perth arrived in early August so we stayed at the farm and went on a 53km canoeing expedition down the Ord River, carrying all our provisions and camping next to the river as we went. On arriving back to Kununurra a little tired and about 3 cartons lighter we packed the van and headed for Darwin stopping at Katherine hot springs on the way.

I had already been to Darwin so let the guys I was with explore which was quite lucky as I came down with Tonsolitus which was not so much fun (and to be fair I am still getting over it now). Anyway after mincing around Darwin for a bit and swimming in some lakes and drinking a little to much, we headed off to Cairns. With 5 of us in the van we set of for a look around Lichfeild National Park and then South to 3 ways and then hanged a left East and 4 days and 2800km later arrived in Cairns.

I am in Cairns now after booking some diving we are heading North to Cape Tribulation for a couple of days before getting back to Carins for some diving.

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