Advertisement
Published: October 1st 2009
Out of the gate
Bull riding at the Bushmans Rodeo - apologies for the blurry photos but it was dark and the bulls wouldn't stay still!!Day 153 - Kununurra
There’s a young lad in Tewkesbury who is celebrating his 7th birthday today, can you guess who it is? It’s Charlie Brown! Happy Birthday Charlie and we hope you have a lovely day! We were wide awake this morning at 05:30! That hasn’t happened since we were doing shifts at the old Bristol depot! We jest of course but it’s been a little while since the sun was up that early in the morning over here!
The bright sunny morning makes our spot by Lake Kununurra even more beautiful with the birds already singing in the trees and the water monitors just about dragging themselves around for some early morning rays! It’s very peaceful here so we just sit and enjoy it for a while.
Today we’re going to take a trip up the road to Wyndham but on the way there are a few other places for us to spend some time.
We leave Kununurra across the Diversion Dam road with its a great view over the river banks. The scenery along the road is pretty awesome with large ranges in view most of the time. After quite a distance we
see the turning for the Gibb River Road which is renowned for tough and remote conditions and a complete disrespect for vehicle suspension, tyres, windows and anything it can rattle loose! We were hoping to do a small element of this road but were told at the Visitor Centre that the adjoining King River Road is shut and the Karunjie Road is deep bull dust which makes it very tough going. El Questro Wilderness Park incorporates a million acre area accessed from the Gibb River Road but we’d already decided this is something we will do another time and give it the attention it deserves. Our curiosity did get the better of us though but only for around 10 km’s where the road was pretty good with a mixture of bitumen and gravel. Bitumen on the Gibb River Road, who would have thought it but rumour has it that there are plans in place to bitumen the whole 660 km plus track - what a travesty that would be.
Our curiosity brought us a grader, a couple changing a tyre having got a puncture courtesy of the grader, views of the smaller ranges and an idea of the road
condition which was pretty rough and badly corrugated in places. Back to the highway we go leaving this particular challenge for another time.
The Grotto is our next stop! The name doesn’t exactly beg a visit does it but we’re glad we made the effort to clamber down the 140 or so steps leading to the waterhole at the bottom which is apparently somewhere in the region of 330 metres deep! It’s a great view from the top looking down and at the bottom we found a few water monitors having a quiet swim and sun bathe! There’s no chance of us swimming in the water though, we’re sure The Grotto wasn’t named because of the grotty look of the water but right now it’s pretty fitting! The walk back up the steep set of steps has us panting a bit by the time we get to the top, the heat is starting to build up!
Further along the road we come to the turn off for Parry’s Lagoon and a sign post to the billabong. It’s a dirt track which is of course corrugated, quite badly in places. PIE does not like corrugations when they are deep
and wide, and quite frankly neither do we! There’s another 4WD in front of us and they come to a fairly abrupt halt to then turn around. Not long after that we follow suit, it’s seems to be the day for doing that on these roads but we’d rather that than the wheels rattle off! Instead we go out to Parry’s Farm Lagoon which is a privately run camp operation and where indeed fellow bloggers Kangaroojack stayed for a couple of nights when they were in this neck of the woods. We think there might be an entry fee but we chat to the nice lady in the café and she tells us not to worry so we promise to come back and purchase a coffee when we’ve had a walk.
There’s a 4km walk here around the perimeter of the property so with water in hand we set off to do that. It’s an interesting little walk which passes by the main lagoon and then onto several smaller lagoons all with a good amount of birdlife in them which is nice to see. We hear rustling in the bushes and out bound a couple of kangaroos, and then
a couple more and then a couple more! Oops, it seems we’ve disturbed their morning nap time! They started to come out from everywhere so we stood still until it all settled down again, they don’t seem particularly tame and some of them are pretty big and we didn’t want to be in their way if they start a big run for it!
The walk doesn’t take us too long to but it wears me out. The mozzie bite I got last night on my right hand has caused it to swell so I took an anti-histamine tablet this morning but it’s made me a bit drowsy. When we get back to the café at the lagoon I tuck straight into a Frosty Fruit ice lolly which does make me start to feel much better so I follow it up with a second! Darryl gets himself a coffee and everything is soon back to normal! There seems to be a few Brolgas here but one in particular is more ‘friendly’ than the others, she’s very confident and is boldly standing at the picnic benches waiting for handouts from the people sitting there having lunch!
We journey gently back
towards the highway and onward to Wyndham where we pass the Aboriginal Corporation Sobering Up Shelter, a group of smart units where aboriginal people can be admitted within certain hours of the day.
I forgot to take a photo so found one that Lynne and Chris (fellow bloggers) took! There’s the huge crocodile to greet you at the entrance to the town reminding you to visit the croc farm to see the beasts live in all their glory! We instead follow the signs to the Five Rivers Lookout which gives us a real ‘Wow’ moment as the views from the various lookouts are spectacular especially on a clear day like today. The port is sadly quiet as it has been for many years now and this has taken it’s toll on Wyndham. It’s been a while since the gold rush took hold. However, there is
a mixed community here and when we visit the Warriru Dreamtime Park we are greeted by two aboriginal men, one of which seems very pleased to see us! He’s an artist and carving a beautiful design into a huge dried fruit from a Boab tree. He asks if we like it and of course we do, it’s very impressive. We find out his name is Eric and he asks if we would like to come to his home to see more of his artwork but we decline the kind offer because we don’t have much cash on us and we’re pretty sure this is leading to a sale and we doubt he has an EFTPOS machine, although you never know! We wish him well and head off back towards Kununurra.
Once we get back to the Dam we stop for a look and remark at all the water being released from the dam into the river which will then find its way out to the ocean and wasted. There is more water here than they know what to do with unlike Queensland which is nearly always crying out for it.
As if all this wasn’t enough there’s a
national park within Kununurra itself. Mirima has a reputation for being a mini Bungle Bungles but as we haven’t seen the real thing yet we couldn’t really say. It’s very hot now so we take plenty of water with us even though we’re only doing the very short walk to the lookout. A steep but short climb gives you a great view over the sandstone formations and the sun gives the rocks a great coloured glow. We’re not here very long so we were glad that we’d bought an Annual Park pass because paying $9 for about an hours visit would seem a bit over the top really! Still, our choice as always! On our way out of here we see a bicycle heading in our direction and he seems to be slowing up so we stop for a chat. The chap's name is Nulkie (that won't be the proper spelling!) and he's been on the road for either a year in 2 months time or a year and 2 months! His English is very broken but we gather that he started in Cairns and came down the west coast, up through the middle and is now coming down through
WA. What an incredible effort. If we see him again on our travels we will try to find out more! We wish him good luck and head for the caravan on all four of our speedy wheels!
Back at the caravan park we bolt straight for the pool and spend time chatting about our forthcoming trip into the Bungle Bungles! Sounds like the road is very rough going in there so it will be a test of will power and car power to see if we can make it through!
The Bushman’s Rodeo is in town tonight so that’s where we spent our evening. It’s different to the Campdraft that we watched at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse
One stubby short of a six pack! and
Following in the footsteps of legends and focuses around the ‘bucking bronko’ style of bullock, horse and bull riding. We were hoping to meet up again with the group we camped with at Saddle Creek and sure enough we spotted the lovely Mick from Sweden then Belinda, Nige and the kids arrived. It was great catching up with them and Zali did her own great impression of a ‘Bucking Bull’ while Lachlan watched intently as the riders clung on with all their might!
The rodeo clowns are terrific in their brightly coloured clothes to distract and entice the bulls, they sure earn their money! The excitement spread to the toilet area too where a King Brown snake was found and had to be removed!!
What a packed day that was! Back at camp we have a check of
Eurodragsterto see how the National Finals are progressing and how The Dogs Bollocks team are doing. With two runs of qualifying gone they’re not doing too well so we go to bed hoping that the third will see them fairing better.
We spot our Nick (Darryl’s brother) on Skype and seconds later the ‘phone’ is ringing! It was great to catch up with him, Sarah and the girls plus we also got to do a three way chat which included Mum and Dad Howells! Just wonderful being able to catch up like that using the laptop, so much better than the phone for us because it’s so much cheaper!! Good old Skype!
Time for bed!!
Dar and Sar
Advertisement
Tot: 0.401s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 21; qc: 136; dbt: 0.1811s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
