Kununurra

Before heading to Kununurra, we had one last day in Darwin. Hillary and I made sure to get as much done as we could while still in the city. I deposited all the pocket change I had been collecting over the past few months, we sent home a box of extras we wouldn’t be needing during our travels (but couldn’t part with), did some laundry and enjoyed some very rare rainfall. We were in bed pretty early that Wednesday night in order to get up bright and early the next morning.

And bright and early we did wake up. September 10th was the real start to our backpacking adventures again. Back on the Greyhound, we’d be in for some pretty long drives. The west coast is pretty spread out, so unlike the east coast most drives wouldn’t be 3-5 hours. In fact, our first bus ride was just about 10 hours. We arrived in Kununurra at 4:30pm, which is just across the border of the Northern Territory and into the state of Western Australia. We also got to change our clocks back an hour and a half. This meant we were now 12 hours ahead of home (Toronto, Eastern Standard Time). To think when we first landed in Sydney we were 16 hours ahead! Anyways, the hostel there was really nice. It was more like a motel, with all the common areas mostly outside, rather than inside.

Friday we set off on a tour of Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra. Lake Argyle is a man made lake, created with the hydroelectricity dam that was built to supply the region with power. The dam also helps with irrigation for the local farmers by controlling the water supply. Our tour gave us some great views of the lake, and a little info about what was going on when it was built. We even learned that the movie Australia (with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman) was filmed in Kununurra! We then took a boat cruise from the base of the dam to the town. It’s a really long river (which is called Lake Kununurra or Ord River), and we even stopped for what Hillary would call “the best afternoon tea she’s ever had”! All in all, the tour was great. We saw some great scenery, some wildlife (birds, wallabies, crocs) and learned some interesting info about the area.

Saturday, it was already time to leave Kununurra. But the bus wasn’t leaving until the afternoon. In fact, there’s only one bus that leaves Darwin for Perth (or vice versa) per day, so that meant the bus we’d be taking was basically the one we’d gotten off from the day before. With the bus leaving so late, we walked around the national park just next door to the hostel. It ended up being a lot longer of a walk than we had originally guessed, but we saw some cool rocks. We saw some “mini bungle bungles”, which was our substitute for the real Bungle Bungles (basically hilly rock formations) in the Kimberley. There were also some great views, which came with some pretty scary heights. Actually, Hill and I climbed up to take some fun pics with this weird balancing rock, and although the height didn’t seem to faze her at all, let’s just say I all of a sudden remembered I have a real fear of heights. Haha

Kevin

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Part of trip: Australia 2009

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