Bored, Jaded, Apathetic, Lethargic, Wearied and Irked. That pretty much covers it.

After eight days in Kununurra we have pretty much seen and done all there is to see and do. We had one major event left, the local markets, which we missed because we thought it was today and it turns out it was yesterday. Can you believe that? Well it was probably all the stuff we have already seen eight times in the last eight days carefully presented in the one hot and noisy locale anyway. A blessing in disguise perhaps?

This morning when a guy asked me “what’s the quickest way to town” I answered without even thinking, “straight down Casurina, through the walkway to Weaber Plains Road, left on to Erythrina Street, be careful of the dog at number fourteen he has a serious attitude problem, and that’ll take you straight to the shopping centre, but I would hurry as most of the shops shut at lunchtime today. Oh if you go to the Variety shop say howdy to Young Bob for me will you, tell him I’ll pop in Monday for a chat”. So now I am beyond bored and heading towards depression. Not “have a bourbon and cheer up you miserable doofus” kind of depression but the clinical type that comes from spending your holidays in a one horse town where no one has a saddle.

Our travelling companions, lets call them “The Ellis’s” for the sake of anonymity, shot through yesterday like people who seriously didn’t want to go to the local markets, or spend another night listening to the aural delights of our resident “singing” performer. I cant really blame them, the tell tale signs of “the depression” were becoming evident even then. Glazed eyes, rocking back and forth with arms folded in front, gnawing fingernails and pulling lumps of hair out, all the classic symptoms. And that was just me.

On a brighter note we visited the local cemetery yesterday, a relatively enjoyable outing, at least until I realized that I have already out lived ninety percent of the “plantees”. Either I am getting old or people die young in these parts. I choose not to probe this question to deeply until we move on to a more desirable setting and normal brain function returns.

Tomorrow is the day the repairer has slated as the day to restore our three-legged conveyance to quadruped status and by Tuesday we will be out of here (demented laugh, which you cant hear and is therefore in brackets).

Later today we are going to Mirima National Park to check out Hidden Valley, fortunately its walking distance from town. We walk everywhere since the “Ellis’s” took the sanity preserving option. On the way to the park we pass by a recent aboriginal midden in Kununurra . I have included photos for your edification. You will note how the middens have changed over time from simple piles of discarded shells from the feasts to the more complex variety of discarded food products.

An ancient Aboriginal shell midden.

Recent midden. Another reason for depression.

A cruise on the “Kimberley Durack” around the lake must rate as the oldest cruise in Australia. Not because the cruise has been running a very long time, its more to do with the average age of it’s passengers.

Lake Argyle, named after the station Argyle Downs that was flooded with the construction of the Ord River dam. The lake covers about one thousand square kilometres and has a capacity of about eleven million megalitres (10,763,000).

The original plan was to grow rice for the Asian market however water fowl, particularly magpie geese ate the rice shoots as quickly as they were planted. This I believe.

“Lake Argyle is Australia’s most under-utilized lake”. Quite obvious, even to me.

“The lake is now home to 26 species of native fish and a population of freshwater crocodiles currently estimated at some 30,000. Fish species that are present in Lake Argyle include barramundi, catfish, bream, cod and many others. Saltwater crocodiles have to climb the dam wall to access the lake so the lake is “saltwater crocodile free”. O.K. but some locals say the “salties have snuck in”.

Cane toads reached the lake in late 2008, mostly via traveling along the Victoria Highway, with numbers rising significantly during the 2009 summer. Now this is total rubbish. There is no way the cane toads reached Lake Argyle via the Victoria Highway. I’ve driven it, so I should know.

The Victoria Highway is a single stretch of tar built for motor transport only, totally unsuitable as a toad conveyance. Cane toads, for those who have never seen one, are basically big frogs. There is no way on gods green earth that a frog can match the speed of even the slowest “grey nomad” let alone a fifty five metre long road train. Add to this the fact that toads are quite small relatively speaking and that “grey nomads” are mostly half blind (or pickled) the chance of a single toad reaching the lake from Queensland is very close to zero. Further the Victoria Highway has, at the Western Australian border, a quarantine station. Now these guys wont even let a jar of Western Australian honey across the invisible line so I find it hard to believe that the dreaded cane toad is going to hop straight past one of these “gunned up” quarantine types. I will concede that a group of toads dressed in a kangaroo suit could deceive one of our less sharp officials, but this would simply not account for the numbers that have crossed the border to date. No, there has to be another answer and I suspect it has something to do with the summer of two thousand and nine. By chance I came across the following image, which I find very suspicious, as the scooter is clearly a 2009 model.

By the way, if you are considering a cruise on the good ship “Kimberly Durack” and you are between sixty and seventy years old, you are in with a chance of being one of the “young whipper snappers” on board and probably wont be offended when during the course of the cruise they play “knock, knock, knocking on heavens door” on the stereo, sorry, radiogram. A word of advise though, when they bring out the cheese and biscuits the mood on board changes. Cheese consumption, from observation seems to be linked to age.

Nothing to declare!

Pass the Cheese Please.

Our insurance company has come to the party and hopefully within a few days we could be gone from Kununura. Not that there’s anything wrong with Kununurra.

Just this morning Young Bob, who now runs the local camping and variety store since Old Bob handed over the reins a while back, was telling me how he had convinced Old Bob to knock forty percent off the entire range of thermal underwear. I was stunned “Old Bob never gave forty percent off anything!” I retorted. Young Bob laughed and said Old Bob thought that with “the climate change” the market would turn around and they would “clean up” in the next season or two. Young Bob had explained to old Bob that “the climate change” meant global warming not cooling and that it was best to unload the thermal stock while they had half a chance, being as how the temperature never drops below twenty degrees Celsius even in the winter. Young Bob then went on to expound how they hadn’t so much as sold a sweatshirt in the last five years so the thermals were definitely going to have to go. No doubt about it Young Bob has learned a thing or two about retail.

Hmmm. I think its time. Beam me up Scotty!

“I’ve given the transporter all she’s got captain, but I don’t think she’s got the power”

Kununurra is home to the Ord River scheme. Like so many other experiments in tropical agriculture the scheme initially failed because of difficulties growing crops and attack from pests. Today the irrigated areas successfully produce a variety of fruits and vegetables, with the most recent crop being sandalwood. Indian sandalwood oil sells for $4500 a litre to perfume manufacturers which would be why indian sandalwood is estimated to account for about 60 per cent of the total farming area around Kununurra, about 3500 hectares, and has replaced food crops such as melons, pumpkins, legumes, chick peas and bananas. Apparently some people like to smell like sandals….. better than smelling like a thong I guess. In the USA it would be better than smelling like a flip flop and the joke just wouldn’t work.

Things to see and do around Kununurra.

1. Watch the Bats.

Every night tens of thousands of bats fly over the town from the southwest heading for god knows where. Having smelt a bat colony first hand my guess is that they are headed for the sandalwood oil for a quick freshen up. Besides there is a good chance they have already cleaned up the fruit crops.

2. The noon bottle shop rush.

Alcohol restrictions in Kununurra are such that the suppliers only trade between noon and eight pm. More enlightened prospective purchasers begin to from queues early as supplies of daily specials are sometimes inadequate leading to angst and confrontation later in the sales period. Coles Liquorland is closed permanently due to frequent affrays.

3. Cane toad catching.

The caravan park supplies butterfly nets and a storage box for the little rascals. The infamous cane toad, introduced to control sugar cane beetles in Queensland in the mid nineteen thirties, has finally completed its migration into Western Australia. Having no natural predators in Australia it has thrived and become a bigger pest than the cane beetle ever was. Unfortunately he toads were unsuccessful at getting rid of the beetles as the beetles live at the top of the sugar cane and the toads live at the bottom and toads don’t climb very well. What the toads did do however was eat a significant proportion of native fauna instead. To compound the effect on native wildlife the cane toad is poisonous and anything that eats it dies of the toxin produced by the toad, rather painfully I might add.

4. Ring the Commonwealth Bank Insurance Company to check on your damaged vehicle claim.

This is guaranteed to fill in at least an hour, unfortunately the rewards are small, however the people are very apologetic about their inability to do anything to help you.

5. The black out sweepstakes.

This is where you gamble on when (not if but when) and for how long each day the power will be out in Kununurra. I’ve down for 10 am and 6 hours today. The fruit bats and large birds supposedly short out the overhead wires, frying themselves in the process. Personally I think the power supplier just turns the generator off to give the locals something to talk about or maybe to save fuel. Who knows?

6. Climb Kelly’s Knob.

A walking trail leads to the top of Kelly’s Knob (a large hill in Kununurra) at the top you are rewarded by a view of “the town” and a sign saying that “the communication equipment that you are now standing next to could start automatically at any time and emit high levels of radiation that could cause damage to eyes (blindness) and loss of brain function”. I stopped reading at this point and set a new record for the 1000 metre downhill run.

7. Go to an unnamed local caravan park and listen to the local artist perform covers of “all time great songs” with factory-made electronic backing sounds.

This experience could be significantly enhanced if the singing and backing were in the same key. I’m not saying the singer is off key, I’m sure its the backing sounds. In any event “Stand By Me”’ made a crying baby sound agreeable. Removable hearing aids never looked more attractive. This experience is comparable to climbing Kelly’s Knob only the damage is done to the aural senses.

Serious Kununurra attractions.

1. Lake Argyle tour. Explore the Ord River Scheme an engineering marvel or environmental mess, depending on your point of view.
2. Visit the Zebra Rock Gallery. Woo-Hoo black and white striped rocks.
3. Check out the pink diamond shops. Secret women’s business.
4. Go to the Hoochery. And don’t buy the Rum just the cake and cream.
5. Go to the Ivanhoe Farm Café for lunch under a giant Mango tree. Very nice.

If you don’t trip and fall the radiation will probably get you.

The Mighty Town of Kununurra from the radiation lookout.

We spent a rather relaxing night on the Gibb River Road disturbed only by a heard of brumbys early in the morning, Jen heard the hoof beats and saw the silhouette on the horizon. The tow truck arrived at 7ish with a utility on the back. The logistics being that I tow the caravan into Kunanurra with said ute and the truck would transport the car. Fortunately for the truck driver I can drive a manual car. In a world increasingly dominated by automatic vehicles I would have thought determining my level of competence with a manual vehicle would have been a clever move.

After forty minutes or so we were all hooked up and ready for the one hundred and sixty kilometre drive to the nearest town, the metropolis of Kunanurra.

The drive into town was very picturesque with the Kimberley ranges forming a lovely backdrop, the mid morning sun highlighting their red colour. This two thousand five hundred dollar self drive tour of one hundred and sixty kilometres will be mentioned in dispatches for some time by the way and I expect to get quite a few free drinks on the whole story. I will therefore say no more. Fifteen dollars and sixty three cents per kilometre. Two thousand five hundred dollars. I could have hitched a ride to town and bought a good second hand car for that.

Anyway, Kunanurra home of the Ord River Scheme (the largest body of fresh water in Australia) and of greater importance, to me at least, the home of “The Hoochery” (the largest body of rum in Australia) is our home for a while.

It actually looks like we may be here for a week or so as parts are a little thin on the ground. For the automotive minded we look like needing- a wheel hub, brake caliper and brake pads, half shaft and C.V. joint, ball joint, stub axle, bearings, seals, antilock brake sensor, tyre, wheel alignment a very large cheque and some rum.

Ute for Van.

Truck for Car.

Across the Pentecost. In daylight this time.

This is our actual location on the planet. I know this because the United States Government allows me to access their satellites and use GPS.

This may be my final entry in this blog at -15degrees 46 minutes 40 seconds by 17 degrees 38 minutes 54 seconds as God only knows what will befall us tonight.

Having successfully rediscovered Mitchell Falls we left the Mitchell Plateau heading along the infamous Gibb River Road for base camp Kunanurra.

Since my last Journal entry you can add to the list of damage a broken, supposedly indestructible, Bilstien shock absorber and a rear sway bar that has slipped loose from it’s mooring.

Despite this we pressed on, fighting the odds all the way pounding endless rocks and corrugations, avoiding low flying tourist trucks and road trains. Then at exactly -15degrees 46 minutes 40 seconds by 17 degrees 38 minutes 54 seconds on this great globe we have chosen to colonize and I might add in the country that I have recently adopted, it happened…. the front wheel fell off. As simple as that, one minute it was on the next minute it was off. Not rolling down the road kind of off, because the wheel nuts came loose and fell of or something similarly simple, but hanging by a thread of suspension bit kind of fell off. In fact, hanging by a tenuous thread of mangled steel. Hanging, much like a baby tooth that seems to wiggle back and forth swinging in the breeze endlessly till it eventually gives up and drops off. And drop off it did at -15degrees 46 minutes 40 seconds by 17 degrees 38 minutes 54 seconds.

Now for those of you with little or no navigational skills, which I suspect is most of you (those with navigational skills are no doubt reading the rather dry “Navigator’s Monthly” or “GPS Weekly”) the position -15degrees 46 minutes 40 seconds by 17 degrees 38 minutes 54 seconds equates with twenty four kilometers west of Home Valley Station on The Gibb River Road in Western Australia. For those of you with no map reading skills we are exactly in the middle of no-expletive-where.

But, not to worry we have sufficient supplies to last two or three days and I for one am confident a car will drive by in the next little while and perhaps even stop and ask if we need anything.

I have a simple plan, mostly because I am by nature simple. If a car stops, we can accept their generosity, offer them our last two zooper-doopers (frozen flavoured ice in plastic saved for just such an event) and while they are distracted by this excellent flavour treat we will bludgeon them about the head “pirate style” and commandeer their superior (read mobile) conveyance thus effecting our escape from -15degrees 46 minutes 40 seconds by 17 degrees 38 minutes 54 seconds.

By the way and on a culinary note the fridge has also had enough. Having tired of its boring day-to-day existence as a keeping things cold device, decided to become creative. Fridge (I call it “Fridge” not “the fridge” because it has a mind of it’s own now and therefore has achieved the status of a free thinking life form) has found that with the help of endless vibration it is able to loosen the lids on selected containers and with the aid of our constant motion blend them together in the butter container into a sort of milky, tomatoey, olivey compote with a red wine sauce.

So its milk, tomato, olive compote in a red wine sauce served in a butter container for tea tonight courtesy of “Chef Fridge” yum. I for one can’t wait. Pass the rum would you Jen!

Being Prepped for Surgery

Yet Another Art Shot.

No caption required.

Vultures gathering.

Sunset.

Sunrise.

A long drive in, a long walk at the end, but worth it. Lovely scenery, clear water, spectacular waterfall, lots of wildlife including a Quoll. The Quoll is a carnivorous marsupial native to mainland Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania. It is primarily nocturnal and spends most of the day in its den. We spotted this one on the way back from the Falls.

Northern Quoll. I see LOL Quolls on the horizon.

Another of Jen’s Birds

Art 2

Art 1

Art 3

Michell Falls in the Dry.

Ancient Burial Chamber.

Welcome to the outback where anything and everything goes pear shaped.

West of Kununurra everything goes wild. The roads, the animals, everything.

We are north of the Gibb River Road heading for the Mitchell Plateau and after just one day we have destroyed a battery, a caravan door, three tyres and a headlight. All this before lunch.

As usual I exaggerate, the damage is spread between two vehicles. Although given fact that the nearest tyre shop is four hundred kilometres away we do anticipate the loss of at least one kidney to secure the supply of a couple of 285. 75.16 tyres. Whoops, there I go again exaggerating, one kidney equals a whole set of tyres in these parts. You know I must have told myself a million times, “don’t exaggerate”.

Anyway we are still trying to get to Mitchell Falls, probably the most remote waterfall that can be accessed by any sort of a road anywhere in Australia. The aborigines walked there for goodness sake, how hard can it be. I’ll tell you how hard, yesterday we had to drive through a crocodile infested river in the dark to get to our campsite and if that’s not bad enough the local cow population had chosen that particular time to go down and join the crocs for an evening drink. This made the river relatively congested once we turned up.

Damage to vehicles aside Australia is still Awetsralia.

Damage to date (us only):

1. Back window having been shattered by wayward rock. has now been replaced with a coreflute real estate sign courtesy of L J Hooker Mount Isa.
2. Headlight being unable to withstand the continuous hammering from countless corrugations gave up it’s position at the head of the car and was discovered dangling rather precariously by it’s electrical unbiblical cord on the bull-bar. Now gaffer taped in and looking relatively normal. The headlight protector no longer protects the headlight. Being fragmentized by accidentally closing hood of car on it after fixing the fallen out headlight (see above) it now forms part of the “Drysdale Landfill Project”.
3. Left indicator light having decided life is too restrictive being mounted to the front mudguard now spends much of its time away from its normal location. We pop it back in each night but by lunchtime it’s had enough and spends the afternoon swinging tenuously in the breeze by its wiring.
4. The little plastic dooby that holds caravan door closed and keeps dust out vanished into thin air letting a fair amount of dust inside caravan. By fair amount I mean an even coating over most things. Speaking of dust the amount of dust on the roads is actually decreasing. As we pass by, we collect a shovel full or so each day through little gaps in various car and caravan seals. We (read Jen) sweeps it up at the end of the day and we leave it at the next convenient campground.
5. The left rear tyre having pounded nearly every rock for the last thousand kilometres in search of one just the right shape and size, finally found its perfect rock. Having run over aforementioned rock the tyre then flew to bits and effectively recycled itself while still attached to car.
6. The right rear tyre seeing that the left rear had effectively retired decided on a redundancy package and expelled most of its air overnight. This left the tyre and myself a little deflated at sunrise.
7. Given the distance to the nearest tyre shop the happy go lucky owners of Drysdale Station can now afford that delightful little cottage in Tuscany they have being looking at on the net. But what the heck we’ve got two new tyres, much more useful than a cottage in Tuscanny.
8. A cupboard drawer is now secured by gaffer tape instead of drawer catch, which has gone the way of “the plastic dooby that holds the caravan door closed and stops the dust getting in”.

Gaffer tape is a much maligned and under rated product. I can confidently recommend gaffer tape to all potential travellers, as it now comprises a significant portion of both the car and caravan. Unfortunately we have run out so Jen had to fix her broken glasses with a Band-Aid. Very stylish but not up to gaffer tape standard.

9. Diesel fuel is now running (or dribbling) at two dollars and fourteen cents per litre. That’s eight dollars fifty six a gallon for our North American friends, almost as expensive as grain alcohol. This is damage to the bank account if you’re wondering why this information is in the damage to date section.
10. Rounding out the top ten as they say, is the brake pedal that requires two pushes to get the brakes to begin their designated function of stopping the four and a half plus tonnes of holiday happiness at selected and often critical moments. When we get to three or four pushes we may have to get more gaffer tape.

Ah………….memories.

Cows in the Pentecost river at night, heading for Home Valley Station

Prince Edward River

Jen’s Tree.

Flat, on the bottom, tyre.

Prince Edward region.

Shower time.

Wayward Indicator eye view.

Keep River, lovely grass plains and rocky outcrops suitable for both sunrise and sunset walks and photographs. That’s it!

Sunrise.

Sunset.

The Three Sisters. Again?

Boab Tree.

Cockatoo Lagoon.

Red Rocks, Golden Grass.

Leaving the Caravan hating Litchfield behind we ventured into Bachelor to check out the “Butterfly Farm”, this is Bachelor’s main tourist attraction boasting butterflies and animals, a restaurant, accommodation, and a bar. Jen opted for the ten dollar guided tour to photograph the illusive (in the wild at least) little insects.

Following the tour it was lunch. I decided on the “butterfly burger” which came with all the usual fillings and a piece of papaya on the side. My initial disappointment due to the lack of an actual butterfly on the burger was soon erased by the quality of the meat on the burger, being both tender and flavoursome.

After lunch Jen revealed that during the butterfly tour they were given a plastic bucket of chopped carrot to feed to the rabbits. She then commented that although there were many rabbits they were mostly quite young. When quizzed as to the location of the rabbit enclosure Jen said that it seemed odd as was next to the herb garden adjacent to the kitchen and that the rabbits seemed quite shy until they saw the carrots. So I’m thinking not so free-range rabbit makes very tender and floavoursome “butterfly burgers”.

Future Burger

Imminent Burger.

Notaburger’s Blue-Black Butterfly