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Published: September 16th 2011
Yesterday when we crossed the border, we moved our clocks back one and a half hours, giving us a twenty-five and a half hour day. Totally confused by the time, we were up early today, even though we didn’t have to be. Frank said the sun was up at 04:30 am. I had myself and the van clean, breakfast over and the washing done and put away by 09:30. On my days off, I would be considering getting out of bed at that time.
We went for a drive up to Wyndham, about one hundred kilometres away at the mouth of the Ord River. Wyndham is divided into two sections, the port town and the main town. The port town is deserted and desolate. We did have lunch in the hotel there though. We also went for a walk along the jetty and watched the tide rush out for a while, leaving small crabs and mud skippers exposed on the mud flats. The area is famous for the size and speed of incoming and outgoing tides. It also serves as a shipping port for iron ore. Overlooking the river, town and mudflats is the Five Rivers lookout. The view is quite spectacular.
On the way back to Kununurra, we paid a visit to The Zebra Rock Gallery. Zebra rock is a sedimentary rock featuring vivid stripes. It is mined in Lake Argyle for only a few weeks per year, and then carved into sculptures, jewellery etc. at the gallery. The gallery incorporates a mango orchard and is situated on the banks of the Ord River in the Ord Valley. They offer visitors the opportunity to feed the fish from their small jetty. What a scream that was. We were handfeeding catfish pieces of bread. Lurking on the periphery were archer fish which catch their food by shooting a jet of water at it. They shot water at us because we were holding the bread. We had a good laugh and I got very wet, getting a spray or two directly in the face. They shoot quite a bit of water. We dried of very quickly in the heat, and ended our visit with a lovely mango smoothie. Mango season is three weeks away. Missed out again.
On our return to Kununurra, we paid a visit to a diamond merchant. The Kimberly region produces the famous argyle diamonds, and now supplies the majority of the world’s diamonds. As we roamed around the displays pointing out individual pieces, Frank’s constant response was “Have you seen the price?” OK, so we are not in the market for diamond jewellery, but a girl can admire. The shock comes with the pink diamonds. I saw an unset pink diamond about the size of a pinhead, and it was over $6,000. Lucky I had already bought my jewellery at the Zebra Rock Gallery. My stone was much bigger and is about six million years old.
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$6,000 - that is cheap!
You obviously missed the diamonds priced between $75,000 and $240,000! Beautiful but wow! The price! I hope you enjoyed your visit to Kununurra.