Kununurra and Katherine

Kununurra is in the east Kimberly and a fair hike from Broome. And Kununurra is hard to say with a stammer and can induce Tourettes and that is why we bought the trailer sticker - Kunu "bloody" nurra, where the hell is that? It's actually in the east Kimberly only 40km from the NT border. The town itself was built to service the Ord river scheme which supplies water during the dry for the various plantations around the area. There is a lot of water about and lots of fish, crocs and mozzies as well. We were lucky enough to camp next to the Kununurra diversion damn which was a nice little shady spot on the outskirts of town. It was a short walk from a great restaurant called the Pumphouse which unsurprisingly was converted from a pumphouse which is situated on the banks of the lake. Good food and had the added bonus of lots of catfish and a couple of freshwater cros cruise up for leftovers under the restaurants balcony which was great entertainment. Here is a blurry shot from our campsite of the Pumphouse. It's not an arty shot, I just stuffed it up.

If this shot does't make you bleary eyed, do some more shots!

The camp site also had its own resident croc called George who had the misfortune of only having half a lower jaw and three legs. He is a very friendly fellow and always comes up to the dam bank at 5pm whilst some residents are having sundowners, nobody feeds him and he just seems to turn up for a bit of company. He has a big friend in the campsite owner who the night previously to this shot had to jump into the water to untie some rope that persons unknown had tied around his jaws. Apparently he just lay there quietly while the rope was untied and just hung around for a bit to say thanks and swam off to chow down on some leftovers from the restaurant no doubt. A very laid back croc is George.

Handsome George

There is a lot to see and do around Kununurra. Some of it does involve walking, I'm a bit of a fan of a walk. Close to town is Mirima national park which is known as the mini Bungle Bungles.  I am the first to admit that we don't always go prepared for a hike/walk. Often on this holiday we have trekked up waterfalls/hills/small bits of desert or isolated beaches in our thongs carrying one bottle of water between us. Our trek through the ravines and up the hills of Mirima followed a familiar trend.

Finn "Fuzzy stuff and rocks.

Dad "Hey lok there's a short walk to a lookout, let's check it out."
Collective "It's hot, 36 degrees, we have no water and we are wearing thongs."
Dad "Yeah but it's not far."
Collective "Your adventures mostly suck Dad."
Dad "This one will be great, anyway we need some exercise."
Collective "Your the only fat one Dad."
Dad "Right we are going to do this walk twice, three times if anyone complains. We can all drink beer afterwards and if you are under age I will drink your share."
Collective "Daaadddd."
Dad "Let's go now."

It was a great walk and everyone enjoyed it. Amanda and Finn looked like they needed to go on a drip after the walk but they are better and stronger people for it. Surprisingly I am still fat.

The next time I suggested a walk I was left to do it on my own. It was to Black Rock falls and it was beautiful and it was 80 metres from the car!

Wildlife in Nitmiluk

 That was a fun walk, right?

Black Hole Falls

aahhh another sunset shot over Lake Argyle this time.

Probably the highlight of the trip to Kununurra was the trip to Lake Argyle and the sunset cruise we did with Argyle Lake Cruises. Captain Greg was our skipper (may of had a job previously in Canberra) and he was brilliant. Took us to islands to feed rock wallabies, told us all about the development of Lake Argyle (biggest man made dam in southern hemisphere) during the sixties which contains the flow of five rivers during the wet into one massive dam which has the capacity to fill Sydney Harbour 21 times. It also contains 30,000 fresh water crocs and a lot more cat fish and maybe not as many archer fish that are damn good at spitting at you if you hold a piece of bread out for them. Finn must have looked like a piece of bread because they squirted him between the eyes. Towards the end of our cruise we entered the water for drinks and snacks. Captain Greg served champagne and beer with biscuits and dips pushed into the water on an esky lid. The catfish joined in as well enjoying the scraps of biscuit. Telling Amanda a croc was about to partake when she was the only person in the water was also a memorable moment, the look on her face was priceless.

Allo beautiful

An island on Lake Argyle

Cheers darling sweetie.

Next stop was Katherine. It is now in the process of being renamed as Nitmiluk or cicada country. Nit nit is the sound cicadas make and miluk the Jawen word for country. Our first trip out to the gorge involved another walk but you will notice from the photo I forced them all to smile about it. The second trip out to the gorge involved travelling up three gorges and being informed about a lot of the history of the place including the famous rock where Jedda and her lover  Marbuck jumped off in the famous 1955 film. There was also some pretty cool 8,000 year old rock art to look at as well as the abundant wild life. But the kids will always remember the swim they had in the lily pond. I will always remember it for Finn almost drowning me. But we survived and had the privalige of putting my head under a  60m waterfall.

Our collective highlight though was a morning spent with Manuel Pakpal who was a Dalabon man who had trekked with his family to the Katherine area 30 years ago from Arnheim Land. Manuel speaks 4 dialects as well as english. They say dialects but they are actually completely different languages, there are no common words. He played the didge for us and explained a lot about living in the bush and survival in that environment. We threw spears with a woomera and Marley comfortably won that contest spearing the cardboard kangaroo from 25m.

With Manuel after a great morning. And we are all members of the Dalabon, not the best artists but we are good with fire and spears so look out.

We also learnt to make fire with Kurrajong branches and grass. There was also an opportunity for us to do some cross hatch painting which we have all learnt takes a great deal of patience and skill. It was quite funny when we stood around looking at some art a few days later in Darwin all discussing some Top End art in the Darwin museum and listening to the boys say things like "Look at that skillage on that! My god that would have taken centuries to do." We all learnt a lot from Manual and if you do only  one thing in Katherine make sure you visit Top Didg and Manuel Pakpal. Also bring some mozzie repellant and visit the hot springs.