Since hitting WA...
Lake Argyle - a magnificent man made lake that is over 10 times the size of Sydney Harbour.We only saw one end, and that was big enough. The damming of the Ord River (and a couple of other smaller ones that I can't remember) has set the scene for the irrigation of a large fertile area of land. Ironically about 30% of it is now given over to sandalwood plantations.
Kununurra - centre of the Ord Irrigation area and downstream from Lake Argyle.
A smallish town with a two supermarkets and four large caravan parks. The sports arenas are green and lush, the rest of the town is a litle bit dry and dusty at this time of year (just like much of the rest of the area). The swimming pool and the Diversion Dam were well used while we were there, and Ivanhoe Crossing was an interesting place to visit. Unfortunately the large salty taht had been reported as camping aat the crossing wasn't in sight when we dropped in. We didn't bother to cross in our low slung 2WD,
especially as the other side was a 4WD track.Around the town are a couple of neat look outs and a small national park. Ironically we saw more wildlife in of from the caravan park, including this friendly frill necked lizard, than we did anywhere else in the area.
Wyndham - the port town on the Cambridge gulf.
Magnificent views over the gulf from Five Rivers Lookout, and some neat bird and croc watching at Marglo Lagoon. It is the closest I have been to a croc in the wild. The ones in the lagoon are freshies - and the birds didn't seem to be too worried by their presence.
In a small area of water we saw three, but there were a few more around I'm sure.
Add a jabiru, some spoonbills, egrets and assorted other birds and it was a nice way to spend the morning.We took our time through this part of the world, and stopped at the Grotto on the way to Wyndham. A couple of water monitors sunning themselves made the climb down to the plunge pool worthwhile. Lack of flow at this time of year meant it was never going to be a swimming hole for us. It doesn't take too much imagination to figure out that it would be a very different place in the wet season.
We needed to fill in a few days before we shared in a birthday gift at Warmun (a.k.a. Turkey Creek), and managed to use up our time fairly easily....reading by the pool isn't really a difficult thing to do. Sure beats sitting around a heater in the middle of winter in Melbourne.
