16th June 1980

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DAY 221


Today is a date I never forget, today 29 Years ago I started my electrical apprenticeship, with N.G.Bailey and company Ltd in Birmingham England, and I can remember being taken by my Mum and Dads next door neighbour, Don, in his MGB roadster, to the Landrover plant in Solihull and the company was working on the new Range Rover assembly plant, and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be reminiscing 29 years later the other side of the world, but I am.

We again were packing up today as we didn’t really have any intention of staying over in Kununurra tonight as there is nothing really to see or do, the only thing it did allow us to do was to stock up on provisions, pick up some mail and catch up on the blog.

This morning I was in the wide awake club at 5.00am, I can remember getting out of bed and Caroline telling me the time and suggesting I get back in to bed but I was awake, and that’s it, once I’m awake I can’t lie in bed, unfortunately.

Caroline got up at around 7.00am when I made her cup of tea, I heard her moving around so managed to communicate to her in words of one syllable that her tea was ready and she could have it inside if she so wish but she said that she would get out of bed and drink it outside.

The morning was nice and warm and for the first 1½ hours of the day I finished yesterdays blog, and sent a couple of e-mails.

It was quite a nice site not noisy at all with a good little camp kitchen and excellent showers.

We were packed up ready to leave by 9.30, so we set off and had to fill up the jerry can and re top the fuel we used getting to Kununurra yesterday. Caroline also wanted to go and have a look in Kimberley Fine Diamonds just to see the pink and champagne diamonds produced in this area, unfortunately for Caroline I was not prepared to part with $88,000 to buy the perfect diamond in the shop.

We were heading up to lake Argyle, which is only 70k’s from the campsite in Kununurra so it was going to be a short distance journey today, and hopefully a relaxing afternoon.

We arrived at the Lake Argyle Tourist Village and Caroline jumped out of the truck and went in to reception, the site looked really busy but because she was a while I knew she had found us a spot. We were directed to our site, and I made a complete a*se of reversing the trailer in, usually it’s no problem but today was just crap, always the way when there is a few people sat around watching.

Still it was better than the bloke next door he unhitched his trailer from his car, and the trailer started to roll down the slope, we heard his wife scream out “help”, seeing her hanging onto the back end of the trailer as it started to career down the slope, into the washing line full of clean washing, we all dropped what we were doing and made a b-line to grab the trailer and help them push it back up the slope and on the level.

The trailer seemed to go up in the blink of an eye and in no time the kettle was on for a cup of tea, behind the back of the trailer was a wall about 2½ ft high and out of one of the 3 drainage pipes was a tail just hanging down, Caroline pointed this out to me and I couldn’t resist looking up the pipe.

Quite a big Goanna was inside the pipe and by the length of his tail we reckon he was about 2 ft long but we can’t be sure as he hasn’t shown himself, though through out the afternoon we have seen bits of him, but nothing past his back.

We sat around for half the afternoon and chatted to people around us, a guy who’s name was Weston Smith, and had a lovely Caravan behind us came over and starting yakking, he asked us what part of the UK we came from and asked if we were near Stonehenge, as he had a field of interest in crop circles.

Another Caravan we were parked by was one that we had over taken a couple of days ago, by the Doon Doon road house, as Caroline had said that “Gavin and Mary” were in the Caravan in front just as we were over taking them, and we spent some time this afternoon talking to Gavin and Mary.

As with a lot of people we have met on this trip the Caravan is their home, they have been on the road since August last year, and have a niece who lives in Brisbane, so they have any mail directed there.

Gavin was a truck driver, we were talking about Australian Trucks that predominantly are American Kenworths, Internationals, Western Stars and Macks and he said the very best truck he had ever driven was a Scania, which are Swedish.

We jumped in the truck and went off to see lake Argyll which is absolutely beautiful, such a huge lake which covers 1000 square Kilometres and is Australia’s largest body of fresh water, the lake was formed by damming the Ord River in 1971.

A hydro dam is at the bottom of Lake Argyll, and this area of water contains crocodiles, which are salties, the other side of the dammed lake is safe to swim in they do have fresh water crocodiles in there but they will leave you alone providing you leave them alone (We do not accept any liability for anyone who reads this then flings themselves in to a stretch of water and gets eaten, or even a little gnawed).

The scenery around the lake was a peach, and we took full advantage of the excellent photographic opportunity, we got back and Caroline made tea, and we sat and Caroline migrated my I-tune library to her I-pod as mine is playing up.

I put on a suitable pair of gloves to see if I could get the Goanna out of the pipe, I took hold of his tail thinking it would be a simple pull but this fellow had such an amazing grip I could not pull him out of the pipe, and I didn’t want to hurt him, so left him alone.

We cook ourselves some dinner then sit for the rest of the evening outside just enjoying the warm “Winter” evening.

So, until tomorrow providing we don’t get eaten by a crocodiles, bitten by snakes or spiders, stung by jellyfish, eaten by sharks or something else, that bites or stings we will bid you good night, from 35 Kilometres south of the Northern Territories boarder, which by the way is the only state in Australia we have not been in to yet, but tomorrow should change that!!

KJ.

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Photos

Goanna
This Goanna went head first in to a PVC pipe and wouldn't come out

Goanna
We push in some apple to try to Coax him out but Oh No he was not coming !

Lake Argylle
Beautiful lake Argylle, it covers xxx and is absolutley vast, but onlt 6% of the water is used.

That Dam Wall
Between Lake Argylle and the river Ord

The Dam Wall
Completed in 1973

How Far
London 8740 Milesor 14050 Kilometeres